Jusr curious, how do they name typhoon?
How Are Typhoons Named in Pacific, South China Sea?
Updated Sep. 17, 2014 12:38 PM
A typhoon is the name of a strong tropical cyclone whose development is common in the Western North Pacific Ocean and South China Sea.
Typhoons are named by the Japanese Meteorological Agency based on a database organized by the World Meteorological Organization’s Tropical Cyclone program, which also compiles the list of Atlantic hurricane names.
“The forecasters have a specific list that they draw from,” AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Jim Andrews said. “Periodically, a storm name is retired and a new name added."
However, there are some subtle differences.
For the process of naming storms in the Atlantic Basin, there are 21 possibilities of names to choose from per year, based of six rotating lists, which are recycled every seventh year. For typhoons, there is one list with 140 names submitted from nations in the region such as China, Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia. There is no restrictions to how many can be used in a calendar year.
“Unlike hurricanes, lists are not year-specific, so they scroll through the whole list irrespective of calendar,” Andrews said.
The Philippines are also a part of the list of nations which submit names. However, according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), they will use local names whenever a cyclone is within the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR).
For example, when Typhoon Neoguri formed in early July 2014, it
became known as Florita after it entered the PAR.
The Philippines'
naming process rotates through four different lists of 25 names, with every letter represented except X. Every fifth year the list is recycled. In the event that there are more than 25 tropical cyclones, an auxiliary list of 10 names is used.
There are only 21 names allotted each year for Atlantic hurricanes, because there are not many names with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z. If 21 named tropical cyclones occur, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet according to the National Hurricane Center.