By admin 
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — The news of Dolly Parton’s passing this week was sad for the world, but just two days after the country music legend died, another Dolly showed up in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
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Tropical Storm Dolly, the 4th named storm of the Atlantic Hurricane season, formed Thursday morning, August 27. While we can’t explain the coincidence of Dolly Parton and tropical storm Dolly making news the same week, we can explain what led to us to having Dolly on the lists of names this year for the Atlantic hurricane season. It is not a tribute to the Tennessee native, but something that could be traced back 30 years.
The World Meteorological Organization is the group responsible for creating the list of names used every year for tropical storms and hurricanes. The have 6 lists of 21 names that get rotated every six years. The names used this year in 2026, will again be used in 2032 and were also the names used in 2020. The names are alphabetically, alternating boy-girl and represent names from all different regions and cultures for those impacted by tropical systems. The naming of storms dates back to 1953, which is when the United States started using only female first names to identify tropical system. It wasn’t until 1979 that male names were added into the list under coordination of the World Meteorological Organization.
We can trace the D named storm back to 1984, when it was Diana. The 4th named storm in the Atlantic that year was a Category 2 hurricane that made landfall in North Carolina, but didn’t get retired. Storm names get retired if it causes historic destruction, extreme financial damage or a high number of casualties. While the Diana of 1984 in North Carolina didn’t meet those qualifications, when Diana returned to the name list six years later in 1990, it was a different story.
The 4th named storm of the 1990 Atlantic Hurricane season was again Diana. This time the hurricane formed in the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into Mexico in the summer of 1990. The impact was big enough that the name was retired in favor of a new, female name that started with D. So, the next time that bank of names was used, we were introduced to Hurricane Dolly in the summer of 1996.
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Hurricane Dolly in 1996 caused flooding in Mexico, but it survived to be on the list again in 2002 when it was Tropical Storm Dolly. During the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season, Dolly was again on the list, but as a hurricane that hit Texas. In 2014 and 2020, Dolly returned as a tropical storm and did not do significant enough damage to be retired, which is what led to it being on the list again in 2026.
So far in 2026, the names Arthur, Bertha and Cristobal have been used in the Atlantic Ocean, and all have been tropical storms. On average, the 4th Atlantic named storm forms on August 15. So, this year’s tropical Dolly formed a few days after its average formation date.
No hurricanes have formed in the Atlantic yet this year. The average 1st hurricane forms August 11.
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