Storms beginning with the letter “I” are the most common tropical system names to become retired in the Atlantic Ocean, and Idalia, headed toward the Florida coast, has the potential to be next on the list.
The United Nations World Meteorological Organization maintains a list of names for each of three oceanic regions and retires names after particularly deadly or destructive storms.
Three have been retired in just the past three years.
“The use of easily remembered names greatly reduces confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time,” according to the National Hurricane Center.
The lists are in a six-year rotation, so the 2023 list of possible hurricane names will be recycled again in 2029.
In the event that more tropical storms occur in a single season than available names for that year, it is then chosen from an approved alternate list of names.
For 25 years, the US only used women’s names to identify storms. Male names were first used in 1978.
The practice of using Greek letters as alternate names ended in 2020.
Retiring a hurricane name
When a tropical storm is extremely deadly or destructive, or “the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for obvious reasons of sensitivity,” the name is retired, according to the National Hurricane Center. It is removed from the list, and another name replaces it.
Of the Atlantic retired list of names, those beginning with the letter “I” are the most prominent, with 14 names, which is about 15% of the list.
Hurricane Ian is the most recent “I” storm addition to the retired list. The 2022 storm was ranked a Category 4, causing more than 150 deaths.
Ian was the costliest hurricane in Florida’s history, causing $115 billion in damage, and third on the all-time list in the US, according to a National Hurricane Center report.
Hurricane Ida, another tropical storm, joined the “I” retirees in 2021 after claiming 87 lives in the US and 20 in Venezuela, according to the hurricane center’s cyclone report.
Retired Atlantic hurricane ‘I’ names
- Ian (2022) resulted in 150 deaths
- Ida (2021) resulted in 100 deaths
- Igor (2010) resulted in 1 death
- Ike (2008) resulted in 103 deaths
- Inez (1966) resulted in about 300 deaths
- Ingrid (2013) resulted in 32 deaths
- Ione (1955) resulted in 7 deaths
- Iota (2020) resulted in 84 deaths
- Irene (2011) resulted in 48 deaths
- Iris (2001) resulted in 50 deaths
- Irma (2017) resulted in 150 deaths
- Isabel (2003) resulted in 51 deaths
- Isidore (2002) resulted in 9 deaths
- Ivan (2004) resulted in 100 deaths
When a name is retired for one oceanic region, it can still be used in others.
Hurricane Dora of September 1964 was one of the three most devastating tropical storms of the year.
The name was retired from the Atlantic name list after causing historic damage across the southeastern US but is still in rotation of names for the Eastern North Pacific list, and was used earlier this year.