The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has released a list with the names of 169 tropical cyclones that are likely to emerge over the north Indian Ocean, including the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. After extensive rainfall and flooding in South Asia during the past few months, IMD has decided to include all the names of tropical cyclones that have either played a significant role in altering weather patterns or have caused significant loss of life and property.
The tropical cyclones are named according to the rules at regional level. In the Atlantic and in the Southern hemisphere (Indian ocean and South Pacific), tropical cyclones receive names in alphabetical order, and women and men's names are alternated.
At 27th Session of the WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones (PTC) held in 2000 in Muscat, Oman agreed in principle to assign names to the tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.
The naming of the tropical cyclones over the north Indian Ocean commenced from September 2004.
This list contained names proposed by then eight member countries of WMO/ESCAP PTC, viz., Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
The requirement for a fresh list of tropical cyclones including representation from five new member countries: Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen (total 13 member countries) was tabled during the 45th session of WMO/ESCAP, held in September 2018. The session was hosted by Oman.
The primary goal of the PTC is to further scientific knowledge and understanding of tropical cyclones and their impacts.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) jointly established the Panel on Tropical Cyclones (PTC) in 1972 as an intergovernmental body.
It is made up of a dozen experts drawn from government, academic, research, and private sector organizations, all working voluntarily, whose aim is to improve global tropical cyclone meteorology.
The Panel is one of the five regional tropical cyclone bodies established as part of the WMO Tropical Cyclone Programme (TCP) which aims at promoting and coordinating the planning and implementation of measures to mitigate tropical cyclone disasters on a worldwide basis.
The main objective of the WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones is to promote measures to improve tropical cyclone warning systems in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.
A tropical cyclone is an intense circular storm that originates over warm tropical oceans and is characterized by low atmospheric pressure, high winds, and heavy rain.
Tropical cyclones are among the foremost destructive weather phenomena and also known as typhoons or hurricanes.
A characteristic feature of tropical cyclones is the eye, a central region of clear skies, warm temperatures, and low atmospheric pressure.
Storms of this type are called hurricanes in the North Atlantic and eastern Pacific and typhoons in South East Asia and China. They are called tropical cyclones in the southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean region.
Tropical cyclones are like giant engines that use warm, moist air as fuel. That is why they form only over warm ocean waters near the equator. The warm, moist air over the ocean rises upward from near the surface.