There will never be another hurricane by the name of Florence or Michael. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced that it is officially retiring these names from its list of Atlantic cyclones.

The WMO is responsible for naming tropical storms and hurricanes around the world.  It maintains a set of six rotating lists for each hurricane-prone region. After a six-year cycle, names are re-used.  Names are only retired when a storm was particularly noteworthy – causing a large number of fatalities or an extraordinary amount of damage.

Hurricane Florence. Credit: NOAA

The 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season was active, but two storms were particularly destructive. Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina in September as a cat-1 storm and dumped a massive amount of rain on the area. Traveling inland, it caused catastrophic flooding in parts of both North and South Carolina. In Elizabethtown, NC, 35.93 inches of rain was reported, making it the wettest tropical cyclone on record for the state. For the contiguous US, it ranked as the eighth wettest.

Hurricane Michael. Credit: NOAA

In October, Hurricane Michael hit the Florida panhandle as a cat-4 storm. With winds measured up to 155mph, it was the strongest storm on record to strike the region and the third strongest storm to make landfall in the continental US. Its powerful winds and storm surge flooding decimated the Panama City area.

To date, according to the National Hurricane Center, 89 storm names have been retired since the current naming system began in 1953. The 2005 hurricane season holds the record for the most retired names – five – in one season.

Starting in 2024, when last year’s list is recycled, the names Florence and Michael will be replaced by Francine and Milton.

The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1.