'Otis,' 'Dora' Officially Retired From Future Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season Name Lists

Two Hurricane Names Retired

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Otis and Dora will no longer be used to name future Eastern Pacific storms after the 2023 hurricane season.

The decision to retire these names was made during an annual meeting held this week by the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) hurricane committee in Panama City, Panama.

W​hy retirement: Atlantic and Eastern Pacific tropical storm and hurricane name lists repeat every six years unless a storm is so deadly and destructive, or using that name again may be insensitive, that the name is retired from future lists. This avoids any confusion or insensitivity over the use of particularly infamous storm names like Harvey, Katrina, Maria or Sandy to describe another future storm.

A committee of the World Meteorological Organization – not the U.S. National Hurricane Center – is responsible for tropical cyclone name lists around the world.

The replacements: O​tis will be replaced by Otilio and Dora by Debora when this Eastern Pacific hurricane name list comes up again in 2029.

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Otis was a no-brainer retirement: Sadly, this was an easy decision for the WMO hurricane committee. Otis inflicted $12 billion to $16 billion in damage when it slammed into Acapulco, Mexico, on Oct. 25, 2023, easily the country's costliest weather disaster

Officially, 52 deaths were directly attributed to Otis, with another 32 missing. However, the NHC noted that the actual toll "could be much greater but is still unknown" at the time their final report was released.

Otis was the first known Category 5 landfall in the Eastern Pacific Basin, and produced a wind gust of 205 mph along Acapulco Bay.

Why Dora was retired: Hurricane Dora tracked more than 600 miles south of Hawaii, so its hurricane-force winds were nowhere near the island chain. However, Dora, together with stronger than usual subtropical high pressure north of the islands, enhanced the pressure difference that drove stronger winds over Maui County.

Those strong, dry winds blowing over ground parched by drought turned a wildfire into a westward-sweeping inferno that razed the historic town of Lahaina to the ground. At least 100 were killed in the firestorm, the nation's deadliest wildfire in more than 100 years. NOAA estimated total damage of $5.6 billion.

I​t was this indirect effect from Dora that prompted the WMO committee to retire the name out of a concern of sensitivity to the disaster.

It was the first storm since 2018 to track across all three tropical Pacific basins north of the equator, beginning as a tropical depression off the Mexican coast on July 31, then tracking well south of Hawaii as a major hurricane, before crossing the International Date Line west of Hawaii. That date line crossing prompted the rare name change to Typhoon Dora, as hurricanes are called in the Western Pacific Basin.

D​ora was only the second known storm to maintain hurricane strength in all three Pacific basins. Hurricane/Typhoon John in 1994 was the only other to do so.

First in Eastern Pacific since 2015: Dora and Otis were the first Eastern Pacific names retired since 2015's Hurricane Patricia became the strongest hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere, then pummeled a small part of southwest Mexico.

E​ast Pacific retirees are rarer: The majority of Eastern Pacific hurricanes move west-northwest after forming off the southwest coast of Mexico and stay over the open ocean before fizzling well east of Hawaii. This lack of land in the way is primarily why there are far fewer retired Eastern Pacific names than the Atlantic Basin. Another reason is the retired name list for Atlantic storms extends 11 years earlier (1954) than the Eastern Pacific retirees (1965).

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O​ther retired Eastern Pacific storms: Ten years ago, Hurricane Odile was the most destructive hurricane on record to strike Mexico's southern Baja California Peninsula, including Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo. Odile also tied for the strongest hurricane to strike the area, packing 125 mph Category 3 winds at landfall.

A​ pair of Hawaii hurricanes - Iwa (1982) and Iniki (1992) - were also retired after each clobbered Kauai. Category 4 Iniki was the costliest ($6.8 billion in 2024 dollars) and deadliest (7 killed) hurricane of record in the Hawaiian Islands.

S​ome strange retirements: Not all retired Eastern Pacific storms were damaging or deadly. Adele wasn't used again after an early-season 1970 Category 1 hurricane took a typical path away from land. The same was true for 1987's Tropical Storm Knut.

B​oth Adolph and Isis were retired not for what each storm was responsible for in 2001 and 2004, respectively, but amid concern further use would be politically insensitive.

A​lso, Dora was retired from use in the Atlantic Basin after it slammed into northeast Florida's "First Coast" in Sept. 1964.

No Atlantic storms were retired: The committee did not retire a name from the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season names list. That marked the first year without a retired Atlantic named storm since 2014, and only the fourth year this century at least one name wasn't retired.

S​ince 1954, 96 names have been retired from further use in the Atlantic Basin. Fiona and Ian were the latest Atlantic storm names retired following the 2022 hurricane season.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. His lifelong love of meteorology began with a close encounter with a tornado as a child in Wisconsin. He completed a Bachelor's degree in physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then a Master's degree working with dual-polarization radar and lightning data at Colorado State University. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on X (formerly Twitter), Threads, Facebook and Bluesky.