Ida retired as hurricane name by World Meteorological Organization

Ida, which made landfall as a Category 4 storm in Louisiana last August, will no longer be a named hurricane.

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The World Meteorological Organization hurricane committee retired the storm from its rotating list of Atlantic basin storm names due to its destruction and loss of life.

Ida is the 94th storm to have its name retired from the Atlantic basin list since 1953, the first year storms were given the names of persons.

Ida made landfall on Aug. 29, 2021, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, making it a strong Category 4 hurricane, WDSU-TV in New Orleans reported.

The hurricane was responsible for 26 deaths in Louisiana, according to the television station. It caused 55 direct fatalities and 32 indirect fatalities in the U.S., WMO stated in a news release. After leaving Louisiana, Ida became an extratropical low pressure system that caused heavy rain and deadly flooding in the northeastern United States, according to the WMO.

Ida caused record rainfall and tornadoes in the Northeast, according to The Associated Press. Newark, New Jersey, was hit with 8.4 inches of rain, smashing the old single-day record by 1.5 inches. New York City had more than 3 inches of rain per hour at one point.

Ida caused approximately $75 billion in damage as it roared across the southern U.S., USA Today reported. That made it the fifth-costliest Atlantic storm in U.S. history, trailing hurricanes Katrina, Harvey, Maria and Sandy, which also have had their names retired, the newspaper reported.

>> 2022 hurricane forecast: 19 named storms expected this year

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2021 was the third-most active year on record in terms of named storms. It was the sixth consecutive hurricane season with above-normal activity, and for the second straight year exhausted the regular names from WHO’s list.

“We had more Category 4 and Category 5 landfalls in the USA from 2017 to 2021 than from 1963 to 2016,” Ken Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center and chairman of the WMO committee, said in a statement. “Hurricanes don’t care about international boundaries. We need to be prepared.”

Forecasters at Colorado State University are predicting 19 named storms for the 2022 hurricane season, with four expected to be major hurricanes -- storms with winds that exceed 111 mph.

Ida’s name will be replaced in the rotation by Imani, USA Today reported.

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