Amphan to hit Bengal today, landfall likely near Sunderbans: Here’s how the super cyclone was named

“If a cyclone is particularly deadly or costly, then its name is retired and replaced by another one,” the WMO website read. 

The group that has 13 member countries, including Bangladesh, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, names cyclones in the region. 

The World Meteorological Organisation/United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (WMO/ESCAP) panel on Tropical Cyclones at its twenty-seventh session held in 2000 in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, agreed in to assign names to the tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. 

Also read: All you need to know about Cyclone Amphan

The naming of the tropical cyclones over the north Indian Ocean commenced from September 2004, with names provided by eight members. Since then, five more countries joined the panel.

‘Amphan’ was the last name in the current list and was supposed to be taken up as the name of the first cyclone to occur in the region in 2020. The name “Um-pun” was given by Thailand in the year 2004 and means ‘sky’.

Before this, the last cyclone in the region, ‘Fani’, was named by Bangladesh.  ‘Titli’ was suggested by Pakistan while ‘Hudhud’ was named by Oman.

After Amphan, the names to be used will be taken from the new list, starting with Nisarga (suggested by Bangladesh), Gati (named by India), Nivar (Iran), and so forth.