There will never be another Hurricane Harvey, Irma, Maria or Nate ― at least not by those names.
Those names, given to the calamitous storms during the historic 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, were officially retired this week, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate were responsible for hundreds of deaths and caused more than $200 billion in damages in the U.S. and Caribbean.
“Names are retired if they were so deadly or destructive that the future use of the name would be insensitive,” the statement said. “Otherwise, names are reused by NOAA’s National Hurricane Center on a six-year cycle.”
Storm names are administered by the World Meteorological Organization. The newly retired names join a list of 82 others that have been withdrawn from the Atlantic basin list since 1953, when storms began to be named.
The World Meteorological Organization also selected four replacements for the retired names. The new ones, which will appear in the 2023 list of storm names, are Harold, Idalia, Margot and Nigel.
Hurricane Harvey was a category 4 storm before it made landfall along the Texas coast on Aug. 25. Most of the destruction was caused when the center stalled over the coast for four days, causing catastrophic flooding. Harvey caused an estimated $125 billion in total damages and 106 storm-related deaths.
Irma, which at one point reached category 5 intensity, came hot on the heels of Harvey. In September, it brought waves of destruction to the northern Caribbean islands, Florida Keys and southwestern Florida. The storm was directly responsible for 44 deaths and $64 billion in damages, officials said.
Hurricane Maria struck the island of Dominica as a category 5 on Sept. 19, and then devastated Puerto Rico as a category 4. Maria directly caused 65 deaths in Puerto Rico, 31 in Dominica and two in Guadeloupe. The damages it caused have been estimated at $91 billion, making it the third costliest hurricane in U.S. history.
Nate was a category 1 hurricane when it made landfall on the northern Gulf Coast in October. Central America was impacted by heavy rainfall, which is believed responsible for at least 45 deaths. Nine people remain missing. The hurricane was a tropical cyclone when it made landfall in Mississippi. Its total damages are estimated at $787 million.
