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List Of Retired Atlantic Hurricanes




Storm names are retired following a request made at the March or April WMO meeting by one or more of the countries affected by a hurricane. While no request for retirement has ever been turned down, some storms such as Hurricane Gordon caused a great deal of death and destruction but nonetheless were not retired as the main country affected did not request retirement.


GENERAL INFORMATION


Theoretically, a hurricane or tropical storm of any strength can have its name retired; retirement is based entirely on the level of damage caused by a storm. However, until 1972 , no Category 1 hurricane had had its name retired, and no named tropical storm had its name retired until 2001 . This is partially due to the fact that weaker storms tend to cause less damage. Since 1954, only four Category 5 hurricanes have not had their names retired - one never approached land, one weakened to a tropical storm before landfall and two were overlooked despite making landfall as major hurricanes (one as a Category 5).

Since 1953, 63 storms have had their names retired. Of these, two ( Carol and Edna ) were reused after the storm for which they were retired but were later retroactively retired, and two others ( Hilda and Janet ) were included on later lists of storm names but were not reused before being retroactively retired.


LISTS OF RETIRED NAMES


Listed by intensity


This lists all retired hurricanes by their peak intensity, which is determined by measurements of the minimum central Pressure .
at its peak intensity. Hurricane Gilbert was the second-most intense Atlantic hurricane.]]

While the intensity of Tropical Cyclone s is measured solely by central pressure, wind speeds are also estimated; the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale is used in the Atlantic Basin to rank hurricanes according to their strongest 1-minute sustained winds. While most hurricanes do not make landfall at their peak intensity, they are often referred to by their strongest Saffir-Simpson Category rather than by their landfall Category.

Of the storms in the Atlantic whose names have been retired, one peaked as a tropical storm, four peaked as Category 1 hurricanes, four peaked as Category 2 hurricanes, twelve peaked as Category 3 hurricanes, twenty-eight peaked as Category 4 hurricanes and eighteen peaked as Category 5 hurricanes. Many storms of high intensities have not had their names retired because they did not make landfall (such as Hurricane Karl ), because they made landfall in an area where they could do very little damage (such as Hurricane Bret ), because they weakened dramatically before making landfall (such as Hurricane Ethel ) or were simply overlooked (such as Hurricane Emily ). However, since the introduction of name retirement, only four Category 5 hurricanes have not had their names retired.

Of the storms listed below, one, Hurricane Cesar , reached its peak strength after crossing into the Pacific Ocean and being renamed Hurricane Douglas . As only the name Cesar was from the Atlantic naming lists and only Cesar was retired, its peak strength as Cesar is listed.






Listed by total damages

in South Florida . Hurricane Andrew was the second-most damaging Atlantic hurricane.]]
This lists all retired Atlantic hurricanes by their total damages (in 2005 USD ).

Hurricane names are generally retired for one of two reasons, either because they were particularly damaging or particularly deadly (a small number of retired storms were both). Because of ever-increasing levels of development along the coastlines of the Atlantic , Caribbean and Gulf Of Mexico , more recent storms tend to be more damaging than older storms even when inflation is taken into account.

Some data may be incomplete and account for damages in only one location while the storm affected several. This is especially true for older hurricanes. Calculation of modern-day damage amounts is done using the Consumer Price Index {Link without Title} ; values are approximate so an exact ordering is generally not possible.





Listed by death toll

See Also: List of deadliest Atlantic hurricanes


due to Hurricane Jeanne . Jeanne killed over 3,000 people in Haiti , making it one of the deadliest hurricanes on record.]]

This lists all retired Atlantic hurricanes by the number of deaths they caused.

Hurricane names are generally retired for one of two reasons, either because they were particularly damaging or particularly deadly. While many damaging storms caused little loss of life, most deadly storms also caused heavy damage.

Most storms cause fatalities not by their high winds but rather through flooding - either Storm Surge or inland flooding due to rainfall. Storm surge has the highest potential for deaths; with modern forecasting, warning, and evacuation storm surge deaths can be almost eliminated, but the potential is still very high for catastrophe in places where warning systems are not in place or if warnings are ignored. Inland flooding, by contrast, is unpredictable because it depends heavily on a hurricane's interaction with the terrain and with other nearby weather systems.

Because of uncertainty in the death toll, an exact ordering of storms is not always possible.




LANDFALLS

making landfall on August 13 , 2004 at its peak intensity. Hurricane Charley was the first Category 4 hurricane to make landfall in the United States in twelve years.]]
Landfall of a Tropical Cyclone is defined as the moving of the center of the Eye over land. Damages from a tropical cyclone are usually greatest where it makes landfall.

In the below list, the retired hurricanes are listed in chronological order with their landfall locations listed under columns designating their strength on the Saffir-Simpson Scale at the time of landfall. Within a cell, landfalls are listed in chronological order. Two retired hurricanes, Hurricane Klaus and Hurricane Fabian , never made landfall anywhere at any intensity. They are omitted from this list. Some retired systems also made landfall as tropical depressions, but depressions were not reliably tracked until the 1990s and so their landfalls are omitted as well.





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