Dolly Parton’s death this week has nothing to do with the name of the new tropical storm that formed in the Atlantic on Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
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“The timing of the use of the name Dolly for this storm is purely coincidental,” said NHC senior hurricane specialist Eric Blake.
The NHC felt the need to clarify that the name Dolly has been on the official Atlantic hurricane season name list for some time, as the alphabetical choices originate from the World Meteorological Organization.
The WMO maintains a list of six years’ worth of names for 21 of the 26 letters of the alphabet to assign to storms, omitting Q, U, X, Y and Z.
This year’s list includes Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna, Isaias, Josephine, Kyle, Leah, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.
The next name is Dolly.
Just saying. pic.twitter.com/lspArwgGvX— Eric Burris (@EricBurrisWX) August 25, 2026
The timing, though, did not escape the meteorologically inclined this week. Commenting on two systems that were brewing at the time in the Atlantic, WESH’s Eric Burris posted after Parton’s death on Wednesday, “The next name is Dolly. Just saying.”
Dolly has been used before, first chosen as a replacement for Diana after the 1990 hurricane season, and then first used in 1996.
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That year it grew into Hurricane Dolly and crossed Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula as a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph winds, died back down to a tropical storm, but then regained hurricane status with 80 mph winds moving onto the Mexican mainland. It was blamed for 14 deaths, according to the NHC.
In 2002, Dolly emerged again, but this time as just a tropical storm in the middle of the Atlantic that did not make landfall.
In 2008, Dolly once again reached hurricane strength, and followed a similar path as it did in 1996 hitting the Yucatan but then moving more north making landfall at South Padre Island, Texas. It also reached a higher intensity in the Gulf of Mexico growing to a Category 2 storm with 100 mph winds.
The system was blamed for more than $1.6 billion in damage and several deaths including one person in rough surf off the Florida Panhandle in Panama City Beach.
In 2014, Dolly was just tropical-storm strength again, forming in the Bay of Campeche and moving inland near Tampico, Mexico with 50 mph winds.
And the last time Dolly was used was in 2000, when it was one of a record-setting 31 named systems that year, but only becoming a short-lived Tropical Storm Dolly in the north Atlantic reaching peak intensity of 45 mph.
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