(MENAFN) The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced on Wednesday that Fiona and Ian have been retired as names for Atlantic tropical cyclones following two deadly and destructive storms last year. Fiona swept through the Caribbean and then north up to Canada while Ian hit parts of Cuba before devastating sections of Florida.
The WMO uses a rotating list of names for tropical cyclones that get repeated every six years. In the future, Ian's former spot will be replaced with Idris, and Fiona will be replaced with Farrah, the WMO announced.
In September 2022, Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico as a Category 1, leaving most of the island without power and killing at least three people. The storm then continued to gain strength as it lashed the Dominican Republic and Turks and Caicos before strengthening to a Category 4 and heading for Bermuda. The storm's path then took it to Canada, where it became the costliest extreme weather event ever in Atlantic Canada, according to the WMO. All told, the storm was responsible for 29 deaths.
A few weeks later, in October, Hurricane Ian struck both Cuba and Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. More than 100 people were killed in Florida, making the storm the third-deadliest to hit the U.S. mainland and, according to the WMO, the costliest in Florida's history.
Retiring the names of particularly deadly and destructive storms is a common practice in the meteorological community to help avoid confusion in the future. The WMO maintains a list of names for Atlantic tropical cyclones, with names alternating between male and female and selected from a pool of names submitted by member countries. When a storm is particularly deadly or destructive, its name is retired and replaced with a new name. This helps avoid future confusion and ensures that storms are not associated with particularly negative connotations.
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