THE I's HAVE IT

When it comes to storm names in the Atlantic, there may not be any more feared than those that start with the letter "I". And that's because of the 93 storm names that have been retired, nearly 12% have started with the letter "I". And if you count the Greek letter Iota, which was retired last year that isn't officially an "I" storm, that's 13% of the retired names starting with an "I". But Iota isn't really a name, it's a Greek letter, so we won't count it.

For a storm name to be retired, it has to cause a lot of deaths and/or significant and lasting damage somewhere. Examples of some of the more memorable retired names, Carla in 1961, Camille in '69, Andrew in '92, Katrina in 2005, and Harvey in 2017. Those were all some powerful hurricanes that caused a lot of damage and death. Storms that we still talk about all of these years later. And a storm doesn't have to be powerful to get retired. Tropical storm Allison in 2001, never became a hurricane, but because it stalled and dumped a ton of rain over one area for several days, damage shot up into the billions. An impactful and memorable storm.

Storms starting with the letter "I" seems to be a doozy more often than not, as "I" leads the pack with 11 retired names. "C" and "F" both come in 2nd with 9. It wasn't always the case for the letter "I", in fact, from the early 50's when names were first given to tropical storms, until the year 2000, only 2 "I" storms had ever been retired, Ione - a cat 4 in 1955, and Inez - a cat 4 in 1966. That's it! But from 2000 on, there's been 9 names start with the letter "I" that have been retired. 3 of those have been cat 5 hurricanes, Isabel in '05, Ivan in '06, and Irma in '17. Two were cat 4 blows, Iris in '01 and Ike in '08.

I think part of the reason there's been an uptick in retired "I" storms is that back in the 50's through mid 90's or so, by the time the "I" storm formed, it was really late in the season. The letter "A" had quite a few names retired in that period, because the "A" storm wasn't forming until August. In this active period we're in now, the "A" storm forms a lot earlier in the season, and early season storms are typically weaker. Only 3 storms forming in June have ever been retired as opposed to 33 storms in August that have been retired. There's also 33 retired storms that formed in September. And in the last 7 years straight, the "A" storm has formed before June. The last "A" storm to be retired was Allison in 2001. That's how rare it has become for "A", much like it used to be for "I".

So because we're in a more active period now, by the time the "I" storm forms these days, it's usually right in the meat of the season when we typically have the strongest storms. So we've been just plowing through names that start with "I" the last 20 years or so.

Ione, Inez, Iris, Isidore, Isabel, Ivan, Ike, Igor, Irene, Ingrid, and Irma. I didn't know there were that many names that started with "I". The ones currently in use on the 6 lists of names we rotate every year, plus the new auxillary list that has replaced the Greek letters, are; Ian, Idalia, Isaac, Imelda, Isaias, and Isla. 

And there's, of course, the one we just had, Ida, striking Louisiana as a strong category 4 hurricane, and staying at cat 4 for almost 5 hours after landfall. So after the intensity and destructive path it just unleashed on the Pelican State, it looks like Ida is about to become the 12th storm starting with the letter "I" to be retired, the 10th since 2000.

So if you hear of a storm forming in the Atlantic, and it starts with the letter "I", you'd better keep your eyes on it.