List of retired Atlantic hurricane names

Part of a series on
Tropical cyclones
Structure Central dense overcast Development Eye
Effects By Region Warnings and watches Storm surge Preparedness Response
Climatology and tracking Basins Climate change effects RSMCs Scales Observation Forecasting Rainfall forecasting Rainfall climatology
Tropical cyclone naming History List of historical names Lists of retired names: Atlantic, Pacific hurricane, Pacific typhoon, Philippine, Australian, South Pacific
Outline Media coverage Tropical cyclones portal
v t e

This is a cumulative list of previously used tropical cyclone (tropical storm and hurricane) names which have been permanently removed from reuse in the North Atlantic basin. As of 2024, 96 storm names have been retired.^[1]

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 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, though 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 during 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.^{[nb 1]} The most recent North Atlantic names to be retired were Fiona and Ian following the 2022 season.

Cite error: There are <ref group=nb> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=nb}} template (see the help page).