Cyclone Dana to hit Odisha, West Bengal: How and why cyclones are named

Cyclone Dana will be the second to develop in the North Indian Ocean in less than two months, after Cyclone Asna in the Arabian Sea in late August.

The name Dana means “generosity” in Arabic and was chosen by Qatar, according to the standard convention of naming tropical cyclones in the region. How are cyclones named, and what conventions are followed in choosing their names? We explain.

Who names cyclones?

In 2000, a group of nations called WMO/ESCAP (World Meteorological Organisation/United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific), which comprised Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand, decided to start naming cyclones in the region. After each country sent in suggestions, the WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones (PTC) finalised the list.

The WMO/ESCAP expanded to include five more countries in 2018 — Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The list of 169 cyclone names released by IMD in April 2020 were provided by these countries — 13 suggestions from each of the 13 countries.

Why name cyclones at all?

Adopting names for cyclones makes it easier for people to remember, as opposed to numbers and technical terms. Apart from the general public, it also helps the scientific community, the media, disaster managers etc. With a name, it is easy to identify individual cyclones, create awareness of its development, rapidly disseminate warnings to increase community preparedness and remove confusion where there are multiple cyclonic systems over a region.

Other regions of the world have similar naming conventions for tropical storms.

What are the naming conventions for cyclones?

While sending their proposals to name the cyclones, countries had to follow some basic guidelines. Among these, they had to ensure the proposed name

• is neutral to (a) politics and political figures (b) religious believes, (c) cultures and (d) gender;
• does not hurt the sentiments of any group of population over the globe;
• is not very rude and cruel in nature;
• is short, easy to pronounce, and not offensive to any PTC member;
• is at most eight letters long;
• is provided with its pronunciation and voice over; and
• is not repeated (not before, not after).

The list of proposed names arranges the countries in alphabetical order, and lists all the names suggested by them alongside. Then these names are allotted to any cyclone, which takes place in the region, on a rotational basis regardless of which country proposed it.

For instance, the first cyclone after the list was named Nisarga (Bangladesh’s name choice), which hit Maharashtra, followed by Gati (India’s choice, hit Somalia), Nivar (Iran’s choice, hit Tamil Nadu), and so on.

After all the names of one column are exhausted, i.e. one name suggested by each country has been used, names from the next column are chosen, again starting from Bangladesh (for instance, after Mocha, the next cyclone was named Biparjoy).

After this list is exhausted (which might take more than a decade, maybe even decades), a new list will be submitted by  PTC members.