How Do Mega-Storms Get Named?

    • AFP
    • Publish Date: Sep 7 2017 6:44PM
    • |
    • Updated Date: Sep 7 2017 6:44PM
How Do Mega-Storms Get Named?

First there was Harvey, which put much of Houston under water. Now Hurricane Irma is rampaging across the Caribbean and closing in on Miami.

Meanwhile, Jose — still a tropical storm — is brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, while Katia in the Atlantic is threatening to ramp up to hurricane force in the coming days. The attentive reader might notice a pattern here: "H", "I", "J", "K"...

For tropical storms
Indeed, the monikers of major tropical storms in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico are drawn from an alphabetical list made by the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), which prepares 21 names per year seven years in advance.

The first major tempest of the June-November 2022 season, in other words, will be Alex, and the 21st — if there is one — will be Walter.

If the list is exhausted before the season ends — which at this pace could happen in 2017 — Greek letters are pressed into service, starting with "Alpha".

For hurricanes
But naming tropical storms that may morph into killer hurricanes is serious business, which is why the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) maintains veto power.

It is rarely exercised, but in April 2015 an expert panel from the WMO banished the name "Isis" — the ancient Egyptian god of fertility — from the 2016 list for the eastern North Pacific, which has its own rotating roll call, as does the central North Pacific.

Having a hurricane share billing with the Islamic State militant group that routinely takes credit for acts of terrorism was deemed in bad taste.

The practice of assigning proper names in the Atlantic basin began in the early 1950s "to help in the quick identification of storms in warning messages, because names are presumed to be far easier to remember than numbers and technical terms," the WMO explains on its website.

Older identification methods based on latitude and longitude were cumbersome and subject to error — especially given the fact that storms rarely stood still.

The denomination of typhoons, as tropical storms in the western North Pacific are called, is more recent and far more complicated, based on the input of 14 nations in the region.

Cyclones in the Indian ocean,
For tropical cyclones in the Indian ocean, the naming process involves — in alphabetical order — Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
 

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Comments

Hemalatha.G Sethu Bhaskara Matriculation Higher Secondary Scho

Quite interesting!

ALWIN D Bethel Mat Hr Sec School

Good to know these things.

R.Lokeshwaran Bethel Mat Hr Sec School

Well that''s an interesting article to read. This is an amazing information about the strom''s. Thanks for the information in this article

E.Harish grand Bethel Mat Hr Sec School

Quite informative.

P.S Geethanjali Nalanda Vidya Niketan, Vijayawada

Always wonder how do mega- stroms get named.

P.S Geethanjali Nalanda Vidya Niketan, Vijayawada

I Always wondered how do Mega - Storms get named.This Article has cleared all my Doubts regarding it.Thanks Toi Nie.

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