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Here is how Bomb Cyclones in Europe are named

February 21, 2020 11:15 AM |

bomb cyclone

Every time a storm hits a region, it is given a name when it reaches a certain strength. If we talk about how the naming of storms originated, it was only the National Hurricane Centre which was the first one to give names to storms all across in the year 1953. This agency only gives names for tropical storms. However, there are storms that can become extra tropical also after certain latitudes.

There is a group of countries or individual countries which accord their own names to the storms when they enter their territory.

Talking about Europe, naming of storms started in the year 2015. Here, severe storms are normally wind storms whose main element of damaging potential is wind. Of course, rain and snow are seen but the main factor is wind.

Any severe storm of this nature is named as Bomb Cyclone. Bomb Cyclone means the rapid intensification of the order of 24 mb or more in 24 hours of a storm.

The fifth year of naming of storms has started i.e. 2019-20. Even in that, there are different agencies but there is an agreement by the National Meteorological Service to name these storms.

First group is United Kingdom and Ireland which names storms. This season, Netherlands has also joined this particular group. The new list was released and will name storms from September 6, 2019 to Sep 1, 2020.

There is another group which comprises Portuguese, Spanish and French meteorological agencies and this year, Belgium also joined in.

In addition to this, there is a group of Nordic nations, but they have a limited scope which is not very systemized.

Germans on the other hand have a system set up by Free University of Berlin since 1954. The name of their program called adopt of a vortex was launched in 2002. Under their program, they allow depressions to be named as well.

All these lists follow an alphabetical order with an alternate naming of make and female. Talking about the UK list, it includes Aliyah, Brendon, Dennis, Ellen, Francis, Gerda, Hugh, Iris, Jane, Kitty and so on.

The Portuguese list this season includes names of Amelie, Bernardo, Cecelia, Daniel, Elsa, Fabine, Gloria, Herve, Ines, Jorge, Karine, Leon, Myriam and Norberto etc.

Europe has an agreement with the National Meteorological Service that the country over which the storm reaches at an orange level, they impose names as per their list. For instance, when Storm Ciara reached Germany, it was named as Sandine

However, the storms which form in the Atlantic and are named by the National Hurricane Centre, if at all become extratropical and reach the European region, they retain their names. Lorenzo was the first storm of that kind this season which did reached Europe after affecting the United States.

Image Credit: washingtonpost






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