Cyclone 'Tauktae' was named by

Correct — B, Myanmar. Tauktae was the contribution of Myanmar to the list of cyclone names for the north Indian Ocean, the word referring to a highly vocal lizard. The storm formed in the Arabian Sea in May 2021 and crossed the Gujarat coast as an extremely severe cyclonic storm. Names in this basin are not invented at the time of the storm; they are taken in turn from a list assembled in advance, to which every member country of the regional panel contributes an equal number.

• (a)Maldives — The Maldives are on the same panel and did contribute names to the list — Burevi among them — but Tauktae is not one of theirs.
• (c)Oman — Oman's contribution on the same list included Yaas, the cyclone that struck the Odisha and West Bengal coasts later in the same month of May 2021, which is the most likely source of the confusion here.
• (d)Iran — Iran joined the panel when it was enlarged and contributed names such as Nivar, the cyclone of November 2020. Tauktae is not among them.

Tropical cyclones in the north Indian Ocean are named under the World Meteorological Organization and ESCAP panel, for which the India Meteorological Department serves as the regional centre. The panel began with eight countries in 2004 and was widened to thirteen, and a fresh list of 169 names was released in 2020. Names are used in rotation across the countries in alphabetical order of the contributing nation, which is why consecutive storms carry names from very different languages.

Naming questions are best handled by memorising a short run of recent storms with their contributors rather than the whole list. The point of the naming system is practical — a name is easier to broadcast, remember and warn about than a number, and it prevents confusion when more than one system is active. In this basin names are not retired after a destructive storm, unlike Atlantic practice.

• Tauktae, contributed by Myanmar, formed in the Arabian Sea in May 2021 and crossed the Gujarat coast.
• The India Meteorological Department is the regional specialised meteorological centre for the north Indian Ocean.
• The panel now has thirteen member countries and released a list of 169 names in 2020.
• Amphan came from Thailand, Nisarga from Bangladesh, Nivar from Iran, Burevi from the Maldives and Yaas from Oman.
• A name is used once and, in this basin, is not retired after a damaging storm.

• Pairing Tauktae with Oman, which named Yaas in the same month.
• Assuming the country a cyclone strikes is the country that named it.

A naming item that recurs almost every year, with the previous season's storms as distractors.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which agency serves as the regional specialised meteorological centre for tropical cyclones in the north Indian Ocean?

  • (a)India Meteorological Department
  • (b)Bangladesh Meteorological Department
  • (c)Pakistan Meteorological Department
  • (d)Sri Lanka Department of Meteorology

  Answer(a) India Meteorological Department — it issues the warnings and assigns the names for the whole basin.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Cyclone Yaas, which struck the Odisha coast in May 2021, was named by

  • (a)Myanmar
  • (b)Oman
  • (c)Thailand
  • (d)Bangladesh

  Answer(b) Oman — the same month in which Myanmar's Tauktae hit the west coast.