Beryl, Helene and Milton join list of nearly 100 hurricane names so deadly they won't be repeated
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Hurricanes Helene, Milton and Beryl caused so much destruction last year that their names are being retired.
The World Meteorological Organization on Wednesday officially replaced the names of the trio of 2024 storms that killed more than 300 people and caused more than $119 billion (€107bn) in damage.
Brianna, Holly and Miguel take their place in the rotating six-year list of names for Atlantic storms set in advance by a committee of international meteorologists.
The names are repeated every six years, unless a storm is so deadly that its name is retired. This killer list is now approaching 100.
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How destructive were these 2024 hurricanes?
David DeMeza walks out with belongings through sands pushed on to the streets by Hurricane Helene, 2 October 2024, in Treasure Island, Florida.
AP Photo/Mike Carlson, File
Helene
was by far the deadliest and most expensive of the trio with its flooding claiming 249 lives, the most in the United States since 2005's Katrina.
It also was the seventh most expensive storm in American history, with damages reaching $78.7 billion (€70.9bn), according to the National Hurricane Center.
While it came out of the Gulf and hit Florida's Big Bend region as a Category 4, most of the deaths and damage were inland in North Carolina and South Carolina.
Milton
came on the heels of Helene, bringing high winds, flooding and tornadoes to cause $34.3 billion (€30.9bn) in damage, almost all of it in Florida. It caused 15 fatalities.
An overwhelmed resident surveys the damage following flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Beryl, 11 July, 2024, in Plainfield, Vt.
AP Photo/Dmitry Belyakov
Beryl
, which in June became the earliest Category 5 storm to form in a season, killed 68 people in the United States, Grenada, Venezuela, Jamaica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
In the Pacific region, the name Jack is replacing John, a Category 3 storm that killed 29 people in Mexico.
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Early warnings reduced death tolls, WMO says
"The work of the Hurricane Committee is critical to ensuring that everyone in the region across the Atlantic and east Pacific basins is ready for the upcoming 2025 hurricane season, providing
early warnings
for all and reducing the impacts to life and property from these dangerous storms," says Michael Brennan, chair of the Hurricane Committee and director of the Regional Meteorological Specialized Center Miami.
The WMO notes in particular that when Beryl struck, loss of life in the most devastated areas was fortunately limited by accurate advance forecasts and coordinated regional and national disaster risk management.
Although early warnings have dramatically reduced fatalities, economic losses are rising. This is why tropical cyclones are one of the main priorities for the UN's
Early Warnings For All initiative
.
'Whilst the USA bears the biggest outright economic losses, Small Island Developing States and fragile economies suffer disproportionately,' adds WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo.
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- AFP
Months-old footage shows flooding in Florida, not Thailand after heavy rain
"Flooding around (Victory Monument) in Thailand at 3:15pm today. Myanmar citizens beware," reads the Burmese-language caption of a Facebook video shared on May 27, 2025. Superimposed Burmese-language text on the video -- which shows partially submerged houses and buildings in an area inundated with water -- reads, "Flooding in Thailand. Those who are close to the sea, please be careful". Image Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on June 3, 2025 The video circulated online days media reported that a combination of heavy rain and slow water drainage had flooded parts of Bangkok (archived here and here). The footage was also shared in similar Burmese posts on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. But the clip is old and was not filmed in Bangkok. A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to an identical clip published on Instagram on October 9, 2024 (archived link). Its caption reads: "Fort Myers Beach, halfway down Estero island @ 5:30pm on Oct 9. Milton was about double the flooding from Helene for FMB." Category 3 storm Hurricane Milton made landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast on October 9, 2024, pounding communities still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Helene two weeks earlier. At least 16 people died as Milton sent tornadoes spinning across Florida and left millions of buildings without power (archived link). Image Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the Instagram video from October 2024 (right) The Google Street View imagery of Fort Myers Beach (archived link). Image Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (top) and Google Street View imagery from Fort Myers Beach (bottom), with corresponding buildings highlighted by AFP AFP has previously debunked other misinformation related to flooding in Thailand here.
France 24
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- France 24
Swiss glacier collapse underscores urgency of efficient warning systems elsewhere, experts say
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France 24
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Swiss glacier collapse offers global warning of wider impact
Footage of the May 28 collapse showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside, into the hamlet of Blatten. Ali Neumann, disaster risk reduction advisor to the Swiss Development Cooperation, noted that while the role of climate change in the specific case of Blatten "still needs to be investigated", the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere -- the part of the world covered by frozen water. "Climate change and its impact on the cryosphere will have growing repercussions on human societies that live near glaciers, near the cryosphere, and depend on glaciers somehow and live with them," he said. The barrage largely destroyed Blatten, but the evacuation of its 300 residents last week averted mass casualties, although one person remains missing. "It also showed that with the right skills and observation and management of an emergency, you can significantly reduce the magnitude of this type of disaster," Neumann said at an international UN-backed glacier conference in Tajikistan. Stefan Uhlenbrook, Director for Hydrology, Water and Cryosphere at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), said it showed the need for vulnerable regions like the Himalayas and other parts of Asia to prepare. "From monitoring, to data sharing, to numerical simulation models, to hazard assessment and to communicating that, the whole chain needs to be strengthened," Uhlenbrook said. "But in many Asian countries, this is weak, the data is not sufficiently connected." 'Not enough' Swiss geologists use various methods, including sensors and satellite images, to monitor their glaciers. Asia was the world's most disaster-hit region from climate and weather hazards in 2023, the United Nations said last year, with floods and storms the chief cause of casualties and economic losses. But many Asian nations, particularly in the Himalayas, lack the resources to monitor their vast glaciers to the same degree as the Swiss. According to a 2024 UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction report, two-thirds of countries in the Asia and Pacific region have early warning systems. But the least developed countries, many of whom are in the frontlines of climate change, have the worst coverage. "Monitoring is not absent, but it is not enough," said geologist Sudan Bikash Maharjan of the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). "Our terrains and climatic conditions are challenging, but also we lack that level of resources for intensive data generation." That gap is reflected in the number of disaster-related fatalities for each event. While the average number of fatalities per disaster was 189 globally, in Asia and the Pacific it was much higher at 338, according to the Belgium-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters' Emergency Events Database. Geoscientist Jakob Steiner, who works in climate adaptation in Nepal and Bhutan, said it is not as simple as just exporting the Swiss technological solutions. "These are complex disasters, working together with the communities is actually just as, if not much more, important," he said. 'Sad disparity' Himalayan glaciers, providing critical water to nearly two billion people, are melting faster than ever before due to climate change, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters, scientists warn. Hundreds of lakes formed from glacial meltwater have appeared in recent decades. They can be deadly when they burst and rush down the valley. The softening of permafrost increases the chances of landslides. Declan Magee, from the Asian Development Bank's Climate Change and Sustainable Development Department, said that monitoring and early warnings alone are not enough. "We have to think... about where we build, where people build infrastructure and homes, and how we can decrease their vulnerability if it is exposed", he said. Nepali climate activist and filmmaker Tashi Lhazom described how the village of Til, near to her home, was devastated by a landslide earlier in May. The 21 families escaped -- but only just.
