Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-The country is braced for Cyclone Dineo with pictures of a devastated Mozambique sending chills down the spines of many as the devastation that has killed seven so far hurtles towards the country.
The Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre (RSMC) La Reunion has updated the expected evolution of Dineo, which is now expected to reach Tropical Cyclone stage winds of up to 118-165km/h.
Many however have wondered how the cyclone got to be named such. Who names cyclones and how?
According to Traveller24 the unique name assigned a storm is done according to a pre-defined alphabetical list, valid for the current, in this 2016/2017, tropical storm season in the world’s oceans.
In Dineo’s case, this is the South-West Indian ocean region.
“The list for our 2016/2017 tropical storm names are as follows: Abela, Bransby, Carlos, Dineo, Enawo, Fernando, Gabekile, Herold, Irondo, Jeruto, Kundai, Lisebo, Michel, Nousra, Olivier, Pokera, Quincy, Rebaone, Salama, Tristan, Ursula, Violet, Wilson, Xila, Yekela, Zania”.
The name ‘Dineo’, as seen in the list above, is an alphabetical follow-up to last week’s tropical storm named Carlos, which was the third such system in our ocean region this season, affecting the area east of Madagascar.
“Tropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones are named by various warning centers to provide ease of communication between forecasters and the general public regarding forecasts, watches, and warnings”
The names are intended to reduce confusion in the event of concurrent storms in the same basin.
Before the formal start of naming, tropical cyclones were named after places, objects, or saints’ feast days on which they occurred.
“The credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge, who named systems between 1887 and 1907. This system of naming weather systems, however, fell into disuse for several years after Wragge retired, until it was revived in the latter part of World War II for the Western Pacific”, it says.
The naming of tropical storms is done on a universal basis by a strict procedure established by the World Meteorological Organization.
So there you have it after Dineo may come Cyclone Enawo.
Below watch Cyclone Dineo’s passage through Mozambique.
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