Retirement

Atlantic Tropical Storms are named from alphabetical lists of 21 names. There are five such lists, so they repeat every five years. The most severe or destructive storms have their names retired, so there won't be another Camille, or Andrew, or from this years list: Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Rita, or Stan. Wilma also looks likely to be retired. No other year has seen so many retirements.

Having exhausted the list, for the first time ever, tropical storms get greek letter names, and Alpha is churning now in the Caribbean. Alpha is fairly weak and likely to remain so, but imagine what might happen if they had to retire Alpha. The impact on fraternities and sororities alone would be huge. Physicists and mathematicians would find a key notational element suddenly banned - the ripple effect through the economy could be huge.

UPDATE: Alpha remains small and weak, but because its trajectory looks to take it over Haiti and its treeless mountains, the rains it produces might still be rather catastrophic.

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