The World Meteorological Organization decides the names of hurricanes and tropical storms. According to Wikipedia, there are six alphabetic lists of names. One list is used each year, which usually means each name gets reused every six years.

In 1955, the United States Weather Bureau started retiring storm names of significant hurricanes. On average, one Atlantic storm name is retired every year.

With storms getting stronger every year, it’s highly likely we’ll see more and more storm names being retired.  Make sure you’re ready for the next storm.  Always have your emergency supplies on hand and ready to go, and don’t forget to protect your home too!  The best way to protect your home is with hurricane impact windows, doors, and hurricane shutters.

Unfortunately, some of you that are reading this blog will remember a few of the storms listed below.  Here are the names of storms that were retired since 2000:

Keith, Category 4, 2000

Allison, Tropical Storm, 2001

Iris, Category 4, 2001

Michelle, Category 4, 2001

Isidore, Category 3, 2002

Lili, Category 4, 2002

Fabian, Category 4, 2003

Isabel, Category 5, 2003

Juan, Category 2, 2003

Charley, Category 4, 2004

Frances, Category 4, 2004

Ivan, Category 5, 2004

Jeanne, Category 4, 2004

Dennis, Category 4, 2005

Katrina, Category 5, 2005

Rita, Category 5, 2005

Stan, Category 1, 2005

Wilma, Category 5, 2005

Dean, Category 5, 2007

Felix, Category 5, 2007

Noel, Category 1, 2007

Gustav, Category 4, 2008

Ike, Category 4, 2008

Paloma, Category 4, 2008

Igor, Category 4, 2010

Tomas, Category 2, 2010

Irene, Category 3, 2011

Sandy, Category 3, 2012

Ingrid, Category 1, 2013

Erika, Tropical Storm, 2015

Joaquin, Category 4, 2015

Matthew, Category 5, 2016

Otto, Category 3, 2016

Harvey, Category 4, 2017

Irma, Category 5, 2017

Maria, Category 5, 2017

Nate, Category 1, 2017