List of retired Atlantic hurricane names

This is a cumulative list of previously used tropical cyclone (tropical storm and hurricane) names which have been indefinitely removed from reuse in the North Atlantic region.

The naming of North Atlantic tropical cyclones is currently under the oversight of the Hurricane Committee of the World Meteorological Organization. This group maintains six alphabetical lists of 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 whether to remove a name is made yearly at an annual session of the Hurricane Committee.

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 ten years, after which time they could be reintroduced; however, in 1969, the policy was changed to have the names retired indefinitely. 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, though many seasons (most recently 2014) did have not have any names retired. The deadliest storm to have its name retired was Hurricane Mitch, which caused over 10,000 fatalities when it struck Central America during October 1998, while the costliest storm was Hurricane Katrina, which caused over $108 billion in damage when it struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in August 2005. The most recently retired storm name is Hurricane Otto, which struck Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua in late-November 2016.

...
Wikipedia