Yesterday the committee of the World Meteorological Organization that deals with hurricane names for the Atlantic and the Eastern Pacific announced its decisions. Because of Covid-19 they did not meet last year.
They retired the names
Dorian (from 2019) and
Laura, Eta, and Iota (from 2020).
Dorian was replaced by
Dexter for the 2025 list, and
Laura by
Leah for 2026.
They also scrapped their former plan of using the letters of the Greek alphabet for hurricane names when there are more than 21 named storms in a year. (That's where Eta and Iota come from.) Instead they have created "auxiliary" 7th lists for both the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific that will be used if the main list runs out. The auxiliary lists, especially the one for the Atlantic, are pretty amazing, looking much more multicultural and much more like a list of what people are naming babies recently than names used for hurricanes ever have been before. The Atlantic auxiliary list, for example, includes the recently invented African-American male names
Braylen,
Deshawn, and Tayshaun, and also has
Emery as a "female" name. Here is a link to the full auxiliary lists:
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/supplemental-list-of-tropical-cyclone-names-raiv
This message was edited 3/18/2021, 10:04 AM