Matthew & Otto: Names You’ll No Longer Hear On Future Hurricane Season Naming Lists
NOAA’s GOES-East satellite on Oct. 2 at 3:45 AM CDT showing Hurricane Matthew over the south-central Caribbean Sea as a Category 4 hurricane. (NOAA)
As you know, or maybe you didn’t know, both the Atlantic and the eastern North Pacific basins’ hurricane and tropical storm names are reused on a six year cycle. As of Monday, March 27, 2017, two of those names have been retired from the list of Atlantic storm names… Matthew and Otto. These two names were associated with systems that wreaked havoc through the Caribbean just last year.
The World Meteorological Organization’s Region IV Hurricane Committee decided to retire these two names because of the death and destruction that they caused and the use of those names in the future would be insensitive. Here are brief summaries on both of those storms…
Matthew grew into a category 5 storm on the evening of September 30, over the central Caribbean Sea at the lowest Atlantic basin latitude ever recorded. Landfall was made on the coasts of southwestern Haiti, eastern Cuba, western Grand Bahama Islands, and finally central South Carolina. Matthew was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Stan in 2005, killing 585 souls, with more than 500 of those occurring in Haiti.
Cutting a late-season path through the southwestern Caribbean Sea beginning on November 20th, Otto intensified into a category 3 hurricane before landfall in southern Nicaragua. It did something rare for a tropical cyclone… crossing over from the Gulf of Mexico and into the Pacific Ocean, when it made its way across southern Nicaragua and northern Costa Rica and emerging as a tropical storm. 18 people across Central America lost their lives due to heavy rainfall and flooding from Otto.
Matthew and Otto are the 81st and 82nd names to be removed from the Atlantic list. Matthew will be replaced with Martin, and Otto will be replaced with Owen, when the 2016 list of names will be used again in 2022.
About the Author (Author Profile)
Scott Martin is an operational meteorologist, professional graphic artist, musician, husband, and father. Not only is Scott a member of the National Weather Association, but he is also the Central Alabama Chapter of the NWA president. Scott is also the co-founder of Racecast Weather, which provides forecasts for many racing series across the USA. He also supplies forecasts for the BassMaster Elite Series events including the BassMaster Classic.Subscribe
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