Retired: There will never be another hurricane named Ian

Mark H. Bickel, Fort Myers News-Press
·2 min read

Highly anticipated. Highly expected.

This would be the best way to describe the news coming out of Costa Rica today that the name Ian has officially been retired from the Atlantic Basin list of hurricane names.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Hurricane Committee met and decided Ian would be crossed off the list for future use. They posted the news on Twitter at 2 p.m.

The committee also retired Fiona. Fiona was a large and powerful hurricane, which hit communities in the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos. It then moved northward over the western Atlantic and struck Canada as a strong post-tropical cyclone in September 2022, bringing significant damage and loss of life along its path.

Fiona and Ian are the 95th and 96th names retired from the hurricane list.

According to the WMO website, a storm name is retired if it is considered "so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for obvious reasons of sensitivity."

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Ian left in its wake more than 160 deaths and $113 billion in damage, with coastal communities in Lee County, Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel Island and Pine Island being the hardest hit. Cape Coral also had significant damage.

Hurricane Ian was a powerful Category 4 storm and the third-costliest weather disaster on record. It was also the deadliest hurricane to strike the state of Florida since the 1935 Labor Day hurricane.

AERIAL IMAGES: Aerial views of Fort Myers Beach six months after Hurricane Ian

The WMO Hurricane Committee selected Idris as the replacement name starting in 2028. Hurricane names are recycled every six years.

For the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, the "I" name is Idilia.

The Hurricane Committee consists of experts from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and serves North America, Central America and the Caribbean (WMO Regional Association IV). Its annual session, the first face-to-face meeting since 2019, is taking place in San José, Costa Rica this week. It is hosted by the national meteorological and hydrological service of Costa Rica, which celebrates its 135th anniversary.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Hurricane Ian name retired by World Metorological Organization