Do you know: Who named the tropical storm?

In the Australian region, the Meteorological Bureau is the name for tropical storms. You can write to the agency to propose a name for the storm, but it may take more than 50 years.

According to The Conversation, tropical storms need to be named to easily identify if there is more than one storm at the same time. Naming tropical storms and cyclones began many years ago to quickly identify storms for warning messages. People will create names that are easier to remember than digitized and specialized terms.

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Consequences of typhoon Idai in March 2019.

So who first named the storms?

It all began in 1887 when Queensland's chief weather officer, Clement Wragge, began naming tropical storms in Greek letters, mythical beasts and names of politicians he hated. .

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Image of Oma storm formed in Fiji taken from NASA International Space Station.

After Wragge retired in 1908, naming the storms occurred less frequently, only in a few countries. Nearly 60 years later, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology took over the job, and Bessie Western Australian Tropical Storm was the first Australian storm to be officially named on January 6, 1964.

Women and storms have something in common, don't they? And that is why after Australia, other countries quickly embark on the use of female names to identify storms and tornadoes .

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Naming will help people identify them in warning messages.Photos taken from satellites of Typhoon Florence in 2018.

How to choose a name for a storm

While the world has a tendency to use female names to place tornadoes and storms, in the International Women's year in 1975, Australian Science Minister Bill Morrison said that both sexes were equal. And for the first time, naming is used both male and female names.

Today, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is responsible for naming tropical storms in this country area using an alphabetical list of names proposed by Australians. These names, have both male and female names. The department said it received a lot of requests from people that name tropical storms by their name, their friends and even their pets.

However, because the number of proposals exceeds the number of storms, the Department cannot accept all of these proposals.

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Northern Queensland coastline Mission tree after Typhoon Yasi.Yasi was named by Fiji Meteorological Bureau, then kept his name when he entered Australia.

Normally, names for hurricanes and tornadoes can be reused, but with severe storms , causing many casualties, such as Debbie in 2017 or Tracy in 1974, their names have been removed. give up permanently for sensitive reasons.

Also, if a name on the proposed list matches the name of a famous character, or a character in the middle of a public opinion, the name will be ignored to avoid confusion.

What if there is a storm formed from another area and then enter Australia? It will be named by the meteorological agency at the starting point, then kept the same when entering Australia, such as Hurricane Oma this year, originating from Fiji.

  1. The destructive power of a storm depends on the naming?
  2. How are the Pacific storms named?