Cyclone ‘Mahasen’ makes landfall on another storm by name
Naming a tropical cyclone ‘Mahasen’ brought in another controversial storm last Monday (13), following allegations against the Met. Dept of insulting King Mahasen.
Met. Dept Director General S.H. Kariyawasam told the Sunday Times, as people were not happy with the name ‘Mahasen’, the title was withdrawn from usage since Sunday (12) night.
“We used ‘tropical cyclone’ in the Bay of Bengal, as was the practice prior to 2003-2004 for local media, and we informed the international media to refrain from using the name ‘Mahasen’,” he said..The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) provides information to all users worldwide. For international navigation purposes, it constantly updates all prevailing weather systems, and resort to naming each weather system for identification purposes, he explained.
“The WMO established panels for each ocean basin in countries worldwide. The panels for tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea did not use specific names before 2004. However, since 2004, weather systems even in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea were named to facilitate easy exchange of data,” he said.
He said the panel of tropical cyclones for the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea called for names for cyclones, from the meteorological agencies of the eight member countries in the region, namely, Maldives, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, India, Oman, Pakistan and Thailand.
The names so collected are listed in alphabetical order and tabled.
“The cyclone before ‘Mahasen’ was called ‘Neelam’, as suggested by Pakistan, and according to alphabetical order, the next country was Sri Lanka, which submitted ‘Mahasen’,” he said. According to procedure, once a cyclone develops, a name is used according to the table for data purposes.
“Once the monsoon sets in by the end of this month, conditions will not be favourable for cyclonic effects. Until then, there is a slight possibility of another cyclone developing, but it’s uncertain,” he said.
“Last year, we experienced a drought in June, July and August. That is because there were very few cyclones or associated systems developing in our region,” he added.
Meanwhile, a complaint was filed at the Criminal Investigation Department against the Department of Meteorology, for naming the cyclone 'Mahasen’. The complaint was lodged by the National Council for the Protection of Historical Irrigation and Cultural Heritage.