Cyclone Daye | 21 Sep 2018

A monsoon low in the Bay of Bengal has organized into Cyclonic Storm Daye and will bring another surge of rainfall to parts of eastern and northern India.

• Daye has become the first named storm in the Bay of Bengal so far this year. It has been named by Myanmar.

Cyclone

• Cyclone is the formation of very low-pressure system with very high-speed winds revolving around it. Factors like wind speed, wind direction, temperature and humidity contribute to the development of cyclones.
• Before cloud formation, water takes up heat from the atmosphere to change into vapour. When water vapour changes back to liquid form as raindrops, this heat is released to the atmosphere.
• The heat released to the atmosphere warms the air around. The air tends to rise and causes a drop in pressure. More air rushes to the centre of the storm. This cycle is repeated.
• Since Hurricanes derive their energy from heated seawater which can be prevented by presence of upper-level-winds that disrupt the storm circulation forcing it to lose its strength.

Naming of Cyclones

• Hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones are all the same, just different names for tropical storms in different parts of the world - Hurricane in the Atlantic, Typhoon in the Pacific and Cyclone in the Indian Ocean.
• For the Indian ocean region, the host nations constitute of Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand and the name governing body is Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre (RSMC), New Delhi.
• Each nation prepares a list of ten names which they think is suitable to be assigned to a cyclone. Out of these, the governing body, i.e, RSMC, selects eight names from each country and accordingly prepares eight lists which consist of the names approved by the governing body.
• Since 2004, the cyclones have been named according to the list approved by RSMC.
• The practice of naming storms(tropical cyclones) is to help in the quick identification of storms in warning messages as names are easier to remember and facilitate disaster risk awareness, preparedness, management and reduction.