Matthew, Otto ousted from hurricane list
Violence of the 2016 storms got them exiled
There will never again be a Hurricane Matthew or a Hurricane Otto.
Because of the hundreds of people killed and the catastrophic damage both storms wreaked last year in the Caribbean, the USA and Central America, both names have officially been retired by the World Meteorological Organization, which names hurricanes.
Matthew, which became a Category 5 storm on the SaffirSimpson scale Sept. 30, battered several countries as it rampaged through the Caribbean and the USA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. It made landfall along the coast of southwestern Haiti, extreme eastern Cuba, western Grand Bahama Island and central South Carolina.
Matthew was responsible for 585 deaths, which makes it the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Hurricane Stan in 2005, NOAA reported. More than 500 people in Haiti were killed. The storm caused $15 billion in damage, which ranks it as the ninthcostliest hurricane on record, according to the reinsurance firm AonBenfield.
Otto was a late-season hurricane, cutting a swath through the southwestern Caribbean Sea, beginning Nov. 20. It intensified to a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall in Nicaragua. Heavy rainfall and flooding led to 18 deaths in Central America.
The meteorological organization reuses storm names every six years for the Atlantic and eastern Pacific basins. The nation hardest hit by a storm can request that a storm’s name be removed because it was so deadly or costly that future use of the name would be insensitive.
Matthew will be replaced with “Martin” and Otto with “Owen” when the 2016 lists are used again in 2022. There are separate lists for hurricanes in the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as for ty- phoons in the western Pacific and cyclones in the Indian Ocean. The lists of names are determined years in advance.
Matthew is the fourth “M” storm to be retired (the others were Marilyn, Mitch and Michelle), says atmospheric scientist Brian McNoldy of the University of Miami. He said Otto is the second “O” storm to be retired; the other is Opal.
Including Matthew and Otto, 82 Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm names have been retired.
This year’s Atlantic hurricane season officially begins June 1 — with the name Arlene.