Helene, Beryl, Milton, John Retired As Hurricane Names, WMO Announces

These Hurricane Names Were Just Retired

Four names from the 2024 hurricane season – Beryl, Helene, Milton and John – were so destructive and deadly that they will no longer be used to name future tropical storms or hurricanes in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins.

The decision to retire these 2024 names was made during an annual meeting held this week by the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) hurricane committee. This committee, not the U.S. National Hurricane Center, is responsible for the tropical cyclone name lists.

(MORE: 2024 Hurricane Season Recap)

Why Retire?

Tropical storm and hurricane name lists in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Basins repeat every six years unless a storm is so severe that the name is retired from future lists. This avoids any confusion or insensitivity over the use of particularly infamous storms like Harvey, Ian, Katrina, Maria or Sandy to describe a future storm.

Beryl, Helene and Milton will be replaced in the 2030 Atlantic hurricane season by Brianna, Holly and Miguel. John will be replaced by Jake in the 2030 Eastern Pacific hurricane season.

The 2024 retired storms combined for a total of $122.6 billion in damage and 388 lives lost.

Hurricane Beryl: At A Glance

- Record earliest in season Category 5 Atlantic Basin hurricane: July 1

- Strongest July Atlantic Basin hurricane by maximum winds: 165 mph on July 2

- Ransacked parts of Grenada (Carriacou) at Category 4 intensity

- Struck Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula as a Category 1 hurricane on July 5, then blasted the Texas coast, including Houston, with storm surge, high winds, and flooding rain on July 8

- Sixty-five tornadoes were spawned from Texas to New York, the most by any U.S. tropical system in almost 19 years

- Major inland flooding swamped parts of upstate New York and northern New England on July 10 and 11

- Thirty-four (14 in the U.S.) were killed during Beryl, while another 34 died in the U.S. in preparations or the aftermath of Beryl

- Total U.S. damage estimate: $7.2 billion

(RECAPS: Hurricane Beryl | Records Shattered)

Hurricane Helene: At A Glance

- Record strongest hurricane landfall in Florida's Big Bend region: Category 4 (140 mph winds), pressure of 939 millibars on Sept. 26

- Up to 16-foot storm surge inundation along Florida's Gulf Coast

- Over 30 inches of rain triggered massive destructive flooding in the Southern Appalachians

- At least 63 stream and river gauges set record flood crests

- Up to 7.4 million customers lost power in the Southeast

- Deadliest continental U.S. hurricane (at least 249 killed) since Katrina in 2005

- America's seventh costliest hurricane: $78.7 billion in damage, per NOAA

Hurricane Milton: At A Glance

- Tied Rita (2005) for the strongest Gulf hurricane on record by minimum pressure (895 millibars) and tied for fourth strongest Atlantic Basin hurricane behind only Labor Day (1935; 892 millibars), Gilbert (1988; 888 millibars) and Wilma (2005; 882 millibars)

- Made Category 3 landfall in western Florida on Oct. 9, affecting areas swiped by Helene two weeks prior

- 6 to 9 feet of storm surge inundation in western Florida, with an estimated 10-foot amount near Manasota Key

- Up to 20.40 inches of rain near St. Petersburg

- Over 40 tornadoes spawned in Florida, the state's largest modern-era outbreak, including an EF3 near Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, which claimed six lives

- Thirty-nine were killed in the U.S., 12 during the storm and another 27 either in the pre-storm preparations or Milton's aftermath. Three others were killed in Mexico

- An estimated $34.3 billion in damage was from Milton in the U.S., though this is uncertain given some areas previously were hit by Helene

(RECAP: Hurricane Milton)

Hurricane John: At A Glance

- First landfall: Sept. 23 as a Category 3 hurricane in Mexico's Guerrero state

- It then weakened to a remnant low, but then slid offshore and became a hurricane again before its final landfall as a tropical storm on Sept. 27 in Michoacán state

- Up to 56.8 inches of rain was reported in Acapulco, less than a year after its historic battering from Category 5 Hurricane Otis

- Widespread flooding and mudslides reported

- Twenty-nine deaths were attributed to the hurricane in Mexico, 23 of those in Guerrero state

- Estimated damage from Gallagher Re: $2.45 billion, according to the National Hurricane Center

Retired Facts

Since the naming of Atlantic tropical cyclones ditched the phonetic alphabet in 1953, 99 Atlantic tropical cyclone names have been retired, including 2022's Fiona and Ian, 2021's Ida, 2020's Laura, 2019's Dorian, 2018's Florence and Michael, and 2017's Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate.

Only 20 seasons have not had a name retired, most recently in 2023. Another 29 seasons, through 2024, have had multiple names removed from future use, led by the record-smashing 2005 hurricane season's five retirees. It's the first time since 2020 that three names have been retired from the previous Atlantic Basin season.

The top 34 costliest U.S. hurricanes have all had their names retired. Each was responsible for at least $9.3 billion in damage in the U.S., according to NOAA.

Names beginning with the letter “I” have been retired 13 times, the most of any letter. This is because these ninth named storms of a season tend to form in the most active months when conditions are most favorable for stronger hurricanes that could have a significant impact. (Note: "Iota" in the 2020 hurricane season was also retired, but was from the supplemental Greek letter name list after all names were used up.)

In 2021, the WMO committee voted to retire the use of the Greek alphabet in hurricane seasons that produce more tropical storms than the 21 names on the list. Going forward, a season's 22nd storm will be named "Adria," the first name of a supplemental list generated by the committee.

John is only the 22nd Eastern Pacific hurricane name to be retired since 1965. This is largely because more Eastern Pacific storms and hurricanes move westward into the open ocean and eventually fizzle, rather than strike land as intense hurricanes.

But it's the second year in a row that at least one Eastern Pacific name was retired. Both Dora and Otis were retired after the 2023 Eastern Pacific season.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.