Goodbye Joaquin, Patricia and Erika: World Meteorological Organization retires 3 names from 2015 hurricane season

By Katy Galimberti, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer

April 26,2016; 11:50PM,EDT

 

 

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) will retire the names Erika, Joaquin and Patricia after the 2015 season.
All three storms inflicted destruction, gaining enough notoriety to be taken off the list for future use.
The naming list is recycled every six years for the respective basins. Erika and Joaquin will be removed from the list of names in the Atlantic, replaced with Elsa and Julian. Patricia will be taken off the list for the eastern Pacific and be replaced with Pamela.
The WMO will retire names if a storm "was so deadly or costly that the future use of the name would be insensitive," they said in a press release.
Tropical Storm Erika
Broken traffic lights and street lamps lay on the ground as the strong winds of Tropical Storm Erika approach Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, Friday, August 28,2015. (AP Photo/Tatiana Fernandez)
Erika tracked through the Caribbean islands in late August, slamming Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Leeward Islands with intense winds and more than a foot of rain. Thirty people were killed on the island of Dominica. The storm caused more than $16 million worth of crop damage in Puerto Rico.
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Hurricane Joaquin
In this aerial photo, homes are seen under the floodwaters caused by Hurricane Joaquin in the southern area of Long Island, Bahamas, Monday, Oct. 5,2015. (AP Photo/Tim Aylen)
In October, Hurricane Joaquin strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane off the U.S. East Coast. A total of 34 people were killed amid the storm, 33 of those deaths due to the sinking of El Faro, a cargo ship that was traveling from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The vessel was found at a depth of about 15,000 feet in the vicinity of its last known position in the central Bahamas a month after sinking.
Joaquin inundated parts of the Bahamas with catastrophic storm surge and was the strongest hurricane to impact the Bahamas since 1866.
Hurricane Patricia
NASA's Scott Kelly shared this image of Patricia approaching Mexico on Oct. 23, 2015, from aboard the International Space Station. (Twitter photo/Scott Kelly)
Hurricane Patricia shattered records by evolving into the strongest hurricane on record in the eastern Pacific during late October. The storm made landfall near Cuixmala, Mexico, as a Category 5 hurricane. Despite Patricia's catastrophic force, no one was killed. Up to 3,500 homes were damaged.
With maximum sustained winds of 200 mph (175 knots), Patricia broke Linda and Wilma's previous record of 185 mph (160 knots) for the strongest surface winds ever in the National Hurricane Center's area of responsibility.