CYCLONE YAAS

CYCLONE YAAS

Subject : Geography

Context : Cyclone Yaas is likely to intensify into a “very severe cyclonic storm” and cross the Odisha and West Bengal coasts on May 26, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. A low pressure area formed over the east-central Bay of Bengal and the adjoining north Andaman Sea.

Concept :

• Yaas, the cyclonic storm that is expected to hit the coasts of Odisha and West Bengal next week, has been named by Oman. Yaas refers to a tree that has a good fragrance and in English, the word is similar to Jasmine.
• Cyclone Tauktae, which was named by Myanmar, means “gecko” — a highly vocal lizard — in Burmese dialect.
• The criteria below have been formulated by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), which classifies the low pressure systems in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea on the basis of capacity to damage, which is adopted by the WMO.

How are the cyclones named?

• In 2000, a group of nations called WMO/ESCAP (World Meteorological Organisation/United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific), which comprised Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand, decided to start naming cyclones in the Indian Ocean region.
• After each country sent in suggestions, the WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones (PTC) finalised the list. The list of 169 cyclone names released by IMD in April 2020 were provided by these countries — 13 suggestions from each of the 13 countries.
• The WMO/ESCAP expanded to include five more countries in 2018 — Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.