New Delhi: Shaheen, Gulab, Tej, Agni, Aag are among the 169 names selected by 13 countries for christening future cyclones in the north Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, the India Meteorological Department has said.
The earlier list of names for cyclones, formulated by meteorological departments of eight countries in 2004, will exhaust after one more cyclone develops in the north Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea. The next cyclone will be christened 'Amphan', a name proposed by Thailand, which is also the last in the 2004 list.
This could perhaps be in the Bay of Bengal as a low-pressure area is expected to develop in the south Andaman Sea. In 2018, a new panel was set up to coordinate and decide names for future cyclones, Mrutunjay Mohapatra, the director-general of the IMD, said on Tuesday. Accordingly, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen gave their preferences for names, Mohapatra said.
He was appointed as the rapporteur for the process by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Mohapatra said since the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the north Indian Ocean witness five cyclones a year, the list could last for the next 25 years. He said the process of naming the cyclone, which started in 2004, helps the scientific community, disaster managers, media and general masses identify each individual cyclone, create awareness of its development, remove confusion in case of simultaneous occurrence of tropical cyclones over a region.