Cyclone Hudhud: What’s in a name?

Kolkata: Cyclone Hudhud, which has devastated the coastal town of Visakhapatnam on Sunday, bringing the three states Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to a complete standstill, is named after the national bird of Israel on the suggestion of Oman, a member of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), an agency of the United Nations.

The Hudhud, or hoopoe bird, is an exotic creature noticed for its distinctive crown of feathers and is widespread in Europe, Asia and North Africa.

The practice of naming tropical cyclones began years ago in order to help in the quick identification of storms in warning messages because names are presumed to be far easier to remember than the numbers and technical terms. Appending names to storms also makes it easier for the media to report on tropical cyclones, heightening people interest in warnings and increases community preparedness.

In the beginning, storms were named arbitrarily. Then the mid-1900s saw the start of the practice of using feminine names for storms. In the pursuit of a more organised and efficient naming system, meteorologists later decided to identify storms using names from a list arranged alphabetically.

Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Centre, which has now become a convention. They are now maintained and updated by an international committee of the WMO.

The World Meteorological Organisation/Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Panel (WMO/ESCAP Panel) on Tropical Cyclones at its 27th Session held in 2000 in Muscat, agreed in principal to assign names to the tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. After long discussions among the member countries, the naming of the tropical cyclones over north Indian Ocean commenced from September 2004.

Eight countries — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Sri Lanka and Thailand — took part. They came up with a list of 64 names — eight names from each country — for upcoming cyclones.

However, names in this part of the world can be controversial, as it often identifies religious, caste and social hierarchy and committee member needed to be very careful and neutral in picking up the names so that it did not hurt the sentiments of people.

The last cyclone Phailin, was named by Thailand, and the next one will be called Nilofar named by Pakistan.