CHENNAI: We’re not sure if the nation wants to know this, but for what it’s worth, here’s a weather forecast that sounds like fake news but is not. After Burevi and some other cyclones, the disaster that can disturb the calm of the Indian Ocean region would be called Arnab.
However, this has little to do with the newscaster caught in the eye of a storm. The name comes from Bangladesh and is one of 169 names suggested this year by 13 countries, including Myanmar, Iran, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, for cyclones that form close to home.
The new list of cyclone names was launched by the Department of Meteorology of India (IMD) a few months after Fani, Vayu, BulBul and Hikka left scars in their wake and a few months before Amphan, Nisarga, Nivar and Burevi made their way through the coastal states of India this year.
As plain cyclone Burevi (which means black mangroves in Dhivehi) forces Kerala and Kanyakumari to call for rescue seven days after Cyclone Nivar (which means light in Persian) left heavy rains in its wake, their curious names have turned the spotlight on the delicious history of the practice of naming hurricanes rather than simply identifying them by dates or intensity.
TN requests 3,758.55 rupees for the assistance of ‘Nivar’
The state government has requested central assistance of Rs 3,758.55 million to carry out relief and restoration activities in districts affected by Cyclone Nivar, including Rs 650 million for temporary relief work. An inter-ministerial core team led by Union Interior Ministry Deputy Secretary Ashutosh Agnihotri, who is on a four-day visit to Tamil Nadu, began their work with a state government briefing at the secretariat on Saturday.
India started naming cyclones in 2004
Although the country’s appointment with naming cyclones began in 2004 with Agni (fire) and later Pyaar (not what it seems, read on), the world began to baptize these natural disasters more than a century ago, thanks to an eccentric Australian meteorologist named Clement. Wragge.
The Queensland meteorologist would normally name the mild riots in the South Pacific after the beautiful island women he liked and the more destructive ones after the corrupt politicians he didn’t like, a habit that made his private weather reports rampant: “… the sinister-looking disturbance called ‘Conroy'”, “… and now an Antarctic disturbance called ‘Jenkins’.”
In February 1898, the “dark maiden” Elina struck Mackay off the Queensland coast and then swirled into Mahina and Nachon. While these island beauties became infamous, Wragge’s legacy paved the way for American meteorologists in the 1930s to name natural calamities after their ex-wives and girlfriends. Shortly after World War II, however, came the bra-burning years when women’s groups began to oppose this male youth.
To level the playing field for weather disasters, the United States Weather Department decided in 1979 to give cyclones alternate male and female names. This is how Bob followed Anna and David followed Claudette that year. But this arrangement would also face opposition from Asian countries such as China and Japan, which disapprove of the monopoly of Western names on typhoons. So, as in Hollywood movies and writing rooms, Asian representation began to increase in the Pacific since the 1990s.
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