A special World Meteorological Organisation committee on Wednesday decided to discontinue using the Greek alphabet to name tropical cyclones in the Atlantic.
According to the committee, the practice put too much focus on the Greek letter and created "a distraction from the communication of hazard and storm warnings and is potentially confusing.”
In 2020 with Zeta, Eta and Theta, they sounded so similar it caused problems.
The Greek alphabet had only been used twice in 2005 and nine times last year in a record-shattering hurricane season.
The committee also retired four hurricane names - Dorian (2019) and Laura, Eta, and Iota (2020) - due to the death and destruction they caused.
WMO #Hurricane Committee has retired #Dorian (2019), #Laura, #Eta and #Iota (2020) from rotating lists of Atlantic names because of the death and destruction they caused
The Greek alphabet will never be used again as it was distracting and confusing
🌀🌀https://t.co/tJGn1dxT1o pic.twitter.com/Eaaockkzbq— World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) March 17, 2021
A supplemental list of Atlantic tropical cyclone names in lieu of using the Greek Alphabet was agreed by the committee.
The Atlantic hurricane season will start this year on June 1 as traditionally scheduled, despite meteorologists discussing the idea of moving it to May 15.
*More on GCT: Greek alphabet may be used for only the second time in history this hurricane season 2020
