List of retired Pacific hurricane names
Within the Pacific Ocean, the name of any significant tropical cyclone can be retired from the tropical cyclone naming lists by the World Meteorological Organization if it is felt that a storm is so deadly or damaging that the future use of its name would be inappropriate. Storm names can also be retired for other reasons, such as being very similar to another retired name or because it might suggest an undesirable meaning in another language. Within the Eastern and Central Pacific basins, a total of eighteen names have been removed from the official lists. The deadliest system to have its name retired was Hurricane Pauline, which caused over 230 fatalities when it struck Mexico during October 1997, while the costliest hurricane was Hurricane Manuel which caused an economic impact of over $4.2 billion in damage in September 2013. Patricia was the most recent Pacific tropical cyclone to have its name retired, due to its exceptional intensity.
In 1950 a tropical cyclone that affected Hawaii was named Able, after a tropical cyclone had not affected Hawaii for a number of years. The system subsequently became widely known as Hurricane Hiki, since Hiki is Hawaiian for Able. Typhoons Olive and Della of 1952 and 1957, respectively, developed within the Central Pacific, but were not named until they had crossed the International Dateline and moved into the Western Pacific basin. During 1957, two other tropical cyclones developed in the Central Pacific and were named Kanoa and Nina by the Hawaiian military meteorological offices. It was subsequently decided that future tropical cyclones would be named by borrowing names from the Western Pacific naming lists.
Within the Eastern Pacific basin the naming of tropical cyclones started in 1960, with four sets of female names initially designed to be used consecutively before being repeated. In 1965 after two lists of names had been used, it was decided to return to the top of the second list and to start recycling the sets of names on an annual basis. In 1977 after protests by various women's rights groups, NOAA made the decision to relinquish control over the name selection by allowing a regional committee of the WMO to select new sets of names. The WMO selected six lists of names which contained male names and rotated every six years. They also decided that the new lists of hurricane name would start to be used in 1978 which was a year earlier than the Atlantic. Since 1978 the same lists of names have been used, with names of significant tropical cyclones removed from the lists and replaced with new names.
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