Arnab, Lulu will be the cyclone names in future

The name Arnab may sound familiar to the Indian television viewers. Lulu is a known for the chain of supermarkets in India and abroad.

These are some of the 169 names proposed for tropical cyclones over Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea.

The WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones (PTC) has come out with a list of 169 names for tropical cyclones over the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Each of the 13 members of PTC has contributed 13 names each to the list.  

There is a strict procedure to determine a list of tropical cyclone names in an ocean basin(s) by the Tropical Cyclone Regional Body responsible for that basin(s) at its annual/biennial meeting.

India, which is one of the 13 members of the panel, has contributed names such as Gati, Tej, Murasu, Aag, Vyom, Jhar, Probaho, Neer, Prabhanjan, Ghurni, Ambud, Jaladhi and Vega to the list.

However, the name Arnab (pronounced as Ornab) has been proposed by the other member of the panel Bangladesh. The name Lulu has been contributed by Qatar.

Following countries are the member of the PTC: Bangladesh, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

It was proposed to prepare the new list of names of tropical cyclones in the 45th PTC session at Muscat during September 2018. Then the existing list had only six unused names out of the 64 names. The previous list was prepared based on the proposed names from eight countries that were members of the PTC then.

In view of the addition of five new countries as members of PTC during 2016-18, it was required to prepare the new list including names of all the 13 countries.

RSMC New Delhi will be responsible to name tropical cyclones that have formed over the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea when they have been analysed with maximum wind speeds of 34 knots or more.

However, the name of a tropical cyclone from South China Sea which crosses Thailand and emerge into the Bay of Bengal as a tropical cyclone will not be changed.

The names of tropical cyclones will not be repeated. The panel members’ names will be listed alphabetically country wise, and the names will be used sequentially column-wise. The first name will start from the first row of column one and will continue sequentially to the last row in the column no. 13.

The WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones at its 27^th Session at Muscat in 2000 agreed in principle to assign names to the tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. After long deliberations among the member countries, the naming of the tropical cyclones over North Indian Ocean commenced from September 2004.

The names began with Onil, Hibaru, Pyarr, Baaz. Now only one name is remaining in the list. The next cyclone in the North Indian Ocean will be named as Amphan.