Fiona and Ian are the latest storm names to be retired from the World Meteorological Organization’s rotating list for the Atlantic Hurricane basin.
In a statement issued by the WMO’s hurricane committee on Wednesday, 29 March, the committee members said that Fiona and Ian are being replaced by Farrah and Idris, respectively, and will next appear on the 2028 list.
“Fiona was a large and powerful hurricane, which hit communities in the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos,” said the WMO. “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.”
The committee added that Ian “struck western Cuba as a major hurricane and made landfall in southwestern Florida as a category 4 hurricane”.
According to the WMO, Fiona was responsible for a combined 29 direct and indirect fatalities as well as US$3 billion worth of damages across the Caribbean and Canada. Ian is estimated to have been responsible for 150 direct and indirect deaths, and US$112 billion in damages – making it the costliest hurricane in Florida’s history and the third costliest in the United States.
During the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, Hurricane Ian narrowly missed Cayman before veering north, where it went on to swiftly develop.
The deletion of Fiona and Ian from the storm list takes the total number of retired names to 96 since the WMO began this practice in 1953.
Storm names are rotated on a six-year cycle, with new names being added to replace retired ones. This year, four new names were added to the 2023 list to replace ones retired from the 2017 season.
Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate, which wreaked havoc in the US, Central America or the Caribbean in 2017, are not on this year’s list; instead they have been replaced with Harold, Idalia, Margot and Nigel.
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