This can’t be good. The 2023 Hurricane Names list is out. It looks like it’s already time to start thinking about the hurricane season in Southwest Florida. But why did they have to name one of this year’s storms “Lee”? Like Lee County wasn’t punished enough last year, let’s go ahead and do this.
The National Hurricane Center is making a change to reporting of the storms for the 2023 season. Instead of the usual 5 day, they’re switching to a 7-day tropical weather outlook. More info and a longer timeline is always better. The yellow, orange, and red color coding for development will not change and we’ll still get regular updates at 2 p.m., 8 p.m., 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. EDT.
As far as the names go, they use a list that repeats every 6 years minus the really bad ones. The 2017 season was ugly. The season featured 17 named storms, 10 hurricanes, and 6 major hurricanes. Three of the names that year were retired, Harvey, Irma and Maria. You’ll certainly remember Irma as it hit Southwest Florida near Marco Island as a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 115 mph. The name ‘Irma’ has been retired. Then there was last year’s Ian. This year’s ‘I’ storm will be named Idalia. I’m not sure how to pronounce that and here’s to hoping we don’t have to learn.
Here’s the 2023 Hurricane Names, and a fact about that last time each name was used.