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| Click on image for a higher resolution. Image Credit: NOAA/NASA. |
Irene has been retired from the official list of Atlantic Basin
tropical storm names by the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO)
hurricane committee because of the fatalities and damage it caused in
August 2011 and will be replaced by Irma.
Storm names are reused every six years for both the Atlantic
Basin and eastern North Pacific Basin, unless retired for causing a
considerable amount of casualties or damage. Irene is the 76th name to
be retired from the Atlantic list since 1954.
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| Click on image for higher resolution. Image Credit: NOAA. |
Irene became a hurricane on Aug. 22 and intensified to a
Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale on Aug.
24 while centered between Mayaguana and Grand Inagua in the Bahamas.
It gradually weakened after crossing the Bahamas, making landfall in
North Carolina on Aug. 27 as a Category 1 hurricane. Irene made another
landfall the next day as a tropical storm very near Atlantic City, New
Jersey. The center moved over Coney Island and Manhattan, New York,
the same day
Irene caused widespread damage across a large portion of the eastern
United States as it moved north-northeastward, bringing significant
effects from the mid-Atlantic through New England. The most severe
impact of Irene was catastrophic inland flooding in New Jersey,
Massachusetts and Vermont.
Irene was directly responsible for 49 deaths: five in the
Dominican Republic, three in Haiti, and 41 in the United States. For
the United States, six deaths are attributed to storm surge/waves or
rip currents, 15 to wind, including falling trees, and 21 to
rainfall-induced floods. Including flood losses, damage in the United
States is estimated to be $15.8 billion.
