UN removes Ian and Fiona from list of hurricane names

The death and destruction caused by hurricanes Ian and Fiona last year prompted the UN weather agency to remove them from a rotating list of names assigned to storms, the latter announced on Wednesday (March 29th).

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has indicated that "

" will replace "

", while "

" will take the place of "

", after a meeting of meteorologists in Costa Rica where they estimated that the reuse of these names in the future could cause anger.

Two extremely expensive hurricanes

Fiona was a large and powerful Category 4 hurricane in the Atlantic, which hit the West Indies, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, before making landfall in mid-September last year in Canada, once it became a powerful cyclone. post tropical.

This is the costliest extreme weather event ever recorded on the Atlantic coast of Canada.

In total, it caused 29 deaths and more than three billion dollars in damage in the country and in the Caribbean.

Ian had arrived just days later, hitting Cuba and then the United States as a Category 4 hurricane, one of the strongest to ever hit the latter country.

It killed more than 150 people in the United States, almost all of them in Florida (southeast), where it made landfall on September 28, 2022. Ian, which caused more than $112 billion in damage, is hurricane costliest in Florida history and third in the United States.

It razed entire neighborhoods and cut power to millions.

Floods and water cataracts have even submerged localities inland.

Read alsoMeasuring floods after a hurricane using GPS

During the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, storms are named to make them more easily identifiable in warning messages.

Names are assigned in alphabetical order, alternating between masculine and feminine.

They are reused every six years.

If a hurricane is particularly devastating, its name is removed.

A total of 96 names have been removed from the list since the system was introduced in 1953, when many more storms have been deadly.

Dozens of tropical cyclones form every year around the world.

Over the past half-century, on average, they have caused $78 million in damage a day and each killed 43 people, according to the UN agency.

And the situation is deteriorating because of climate change.

Scientists have warned that the Earth's rising surface temperature is amplifying extreme weather events.

But the WMO points out that the number of fatalities has dropped drastically, thanks to improved weather forecasts, warning systems and risk reduction.

During the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, eight storms became hurricanes.

Fiona and Ian are the only ones to have become major hurricanes, with winds exceeding 178 km / h, according to American authorities.