The World Meteorological Organization’s Hurricane Committee retired Laura from the storm name rotation and decided the Greek alphabet will no longer be used to name systems.
Along with Laura, the committee retired Dorian, a devastating 2019 storm that hit the Bahamas, and Eta and Iota, two major storms that landed last year in Central America.
93 names have now been officially retired from the storm name six-year rotation.
State Climatologist Barry Keim said the committee ditched the Greek alphabet for a number of reasons including that the names being a distraction, the alphabet’s poor translation into other languages, and the fact that there were pronunciation issues with several letters that sound nearly identical.
Only twice in hurricane season history, 2020 and 2005, have there been over 21 named storms resulting in overflow to the Greek alphabet.
A new “overflow” list has been selected instead of the Greek alphabet. Keim said once we get to the bottom of the 21 storm list we will start back over with A.
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