New Delhi: The first cyclone of 2022 is set to hit Andaman and Nicobar on March 21, the India Meteorological Department has said.
What Does It Mean?
As per reports, ‘asani’ roughly translates to ‘wrath’ in Sinhala, one of the official languages in Sri Lanka.
Fortunately, the weather system is not likely to live up to its name. It is expected to be a cyclonic storm of wind speeds ranging between 70 km and 90 km, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
It will, most probably, not turn into a cyclone of high intensity.
How Did Cyclone Asani Get Its Name?
As per the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), it is necessary to name tropical cyclones because there can be more than one such system operating in a particular zone
The names are kept according to the rules at the regional level. In the case of the Indian Ocean and South Pacific regions, the tropical cyclone names are allotted in alphabetical order. The name Cyclone Asani was suggested by Sri Lanka.
Why Did Sri Lanka Name It?
There are six regional meteorological centres across the world with the mandate of naming tropical cyclones. The Indian Meteorological Department is one of the six. New Delhi is mandated to name tropical cyclones that develop over the north Indian Ocean (NIO) including the Bay of Bengal (BoB) and the Arabian Sea (AS).
A list of 169 names, 13 suggested by each of the 13 nations, was drawn up in 2020. The names were listed country-wise, with the nations ordered alphabetically. The names are picked up sequentially from the list such that the nations name cyclones one by one.
Hence, the weather system over the Bay of Bengal has been named Asani, the next name on the list.
