Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Odisha cyclone
The 1999 Odisha cyclone was the most intense recorded tropical cyclone in
the North Indian Ocean and among the most destructive in the region.
The cyclone steadily weakened due to persistent land interaction and dry air,
remaining quasi-stationary for two days before slowly drifting offshore as a
much weaker system
The cyclone steadily weakened due to persistent land interaction and dry air,
remaining quasi-stationary for two days before slowly drifting offshore as a
much weaker system
(Incidentally, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones are all the same, just different
names for tropical storms in different parts of the world; Hurricane in the
Atlantic, Typhoon in the Pacific and Cyclone in the Indian Ocean).
Tropical storms are given names and they retain the name if they develop
into a cyclone/hurricane/typhoon.
When did we start naming Cyclones?
Names have been given to Atlantic storms for the past few hundreds of
years. Initially, people living in the Caribbean Islands would name the
storms after the saint of the day from the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar
for the day on which the hurricane/cyclone occurred.
The tradition continued till World War II, when forecasters and
meteorologists started using female names to identify the storms.
In 1953, the US weather service officially adopted the idea and created a new
phonetic alphabet (international) of women's names from A to W, leaving out
Q, U, X, Y and Z.
For the Indian Ocean region, deliberations for naming cyclones began in
2000 and a formula was agreed upon in 2004. Eight countries in the region -
Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and
Thailand - all contributed a set of names which are assigned sequentially
whenever a cyclonic storm develops.
The name Nilam was contributed by Pakistan,Murjan - a name that came
from Oman. The next in line are Mahasen (from Sri Lanka) and Phailin
(from Thailand).
The list of names India has added to the database includes Agni, Akash,
Bijli, Jal (cyclones which have all occurred since 2004).
The Indian names in the queue are Leher, Megh, Sagar and Vayu, while
those suggested by Pakistan include Nilofar, Titli and Bulbul.