List of retired Atlantic hurricane names
Updated: Wikipedia source
This is a cumulative list of previously used tropical cyclone (tropical storm and hurricane) names that have been permanently removed from reuse in the North Atlantic basin. As of 2025, 99 storm names have been retired. The naming of North Atlantic tropical cyclones is currently under the oversight of the Hurricane Committee of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This group maintains six alphabetic lists of twenty-one names, with one list used each year. This normally results in each name being reused every six years. However, in the case of a particularly deadly or damaging storm, that storm's name is retired, and a replacement starting with the same letter is selected to take its place. The decision on whether to remove a name in a given season is made at the annual session of the WMO Hurricane Committee in the spring of the following year. The practice of retiring storm names was begun by the United States Weather Bureau in 1955, after major hurricanes Carol, Edna, and Hazel struck the Northeastern United States during the previous year. Initially, their names were retired for 10 years, after which time they could be reintroduced; however, in 1969, the policy was changed to have the names retired permanently. In 1977, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) transferred control of the naming lists to the Hurricane Committee. Since the formal start of naming during the 1947 Atlantic hurricane season, an average of one Atlantic storm name has been retired each year. However, many seasons (most recently 2023) did not have any names retired. The record for number of storm names retired from a single season is five, held by the 2005 season. The most names retired for a decade was 24 in the 2000s, followed by the 16 retirements resulting from hurricanes in the 2010s. The deadliest storm to have its name retired was Hurricane Mitch, which caused over 10,000 fatalities when it struck Central America in October 1998. The costliest storms were hurricanes Katrina in August 2005 and Harvey in August 2017; each storm struck the U.S. Gulf Coast, causing $125 billion in damage, much of it from flooding, followed by Ian in September 2022, causing $112 billion in damage from a combination of wind and flooding. The most recent North Atlantic names to be retired were Beryl, Helene and Milton following the 2024 season.