Does every typhoon have a unique name? Those that are too fierce will be removed from the list!

Little-known fact: every typhoon has its own unique name. For example, the first typhoon to land in Guangdong, my country this year was Typhoon Siam, the third typhoon in 2022.

Before the international rules for naming typhoons were introduced, many countries and regions hit by typhoons had different names for the same typhoon, which was particularly easy to confuse. In order to avoid this situation, the World Meteorological Organization Typhoon Committee decided to form a naming table for tropical cyclones in the northwest Pacific and the South China Sea. The long list of names here (tropical cyclones in the northwest Pacific and the South China Sea) refers to tropical storms, severe tropical storms, typhoons, severe typhoons and super typhoons with maximum ground winds of more than level 8 (17.2 meters per second) near the center. Because the tropical depressions occurring in this area do not have the attribute of naming, they are collectively referred to as typhoons.

In order to make it smoother for member countries to use it, the World Meteorological Organization decided that 14 countries and regions hit by typhoons would each provide 10 names to form a typhoon naming table. These countries and regions are Cambodia, China, North Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, the United States, Vietnam and Micronesia in the central Pacific. It is not difficult to find that countries such as Singapore and Indonesia are not eligible for nomination. The main reason is that typhoons near the equator between 5 degrees north and south latitude will not be generated and affected. Since the release of this table in 2000, every typhoon that appears will receive a number + name in the order on the table. For example, Typhoon 2203 Siam is the third typhoon formed in 2022, named Siam.

Interestingly, the names of these typhoons are generally not very lethal. For example, China once proposed Yutu and Bailu, and Japan once proposed Xiaoquan and Shanmao. This is because everyone hopes to use gentle names to make the typhoon less harmful.

However, since this naming list is used year after year, there are cases where typhoons have the same name but not the same number. Taking Siam as an example, its predecessors include Siam No. 16 in 2004, Siam No. 14 in 2010 and Siam No. 18 in 2016. (0416 Siam, 1014 Siam, 1618 Siam)

Another important point is that if a typhoon is too fierce, causing heavy losses to the local area and causing major social and economic impacts, it will occupy this name forever. And the name will also be permanently removed from the typhoon naming list, and no typhoon in the future can be named with it. For example, the super typhoon Mangkhut that landed in my country in 2018. Data shows that in mid-September 2018, Mangkhut caused at least nearly 3 million people in five provinces (regions) of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan and Guizhou in my country to be affected, and 1.601 million people were urgently evacuated and resettled; causing direct economic losses of 5.2 billion yuan. So at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Typhoon Committee, the super typhoon Mangkhut, which had a serious impact on the Philippines and China, was directly permanently removed from the list.

In addition, do you know any other typhoons that have been permanently removed from the list?

Source: WeChat official account of China Science and Technology Press