'쁘라삐룬' 가고 '태풍 마리아' 온다…이름에 숨겨진 비밀은?
Prapiroon, the season's seventh typhoon just passed the Korean peninsula.
Some forecasts show Typhoon Maria could be on its way.
At this point, you maybe wondering how these forces of nature are labelled.
Kim Mok-yeon sheds light on the naming system.
Tropical cyclones are named in order to avoid confusion when communicating with the public as more than one tropical cyclone can exist at the same time.
The naming of typhoons began in Australia the late 1880s.
Meteorologists back then named typhoons after political figures.
But in 1944 during the Second World War 2, U.S. military forecasters started to name typhoons after their wives and girlfriends.
From the late 1970's the scope of typhoon names was broadened.
Currently, in the Northwestern Pacific, names are selected sequentially from a list of 140 names submitted by the 14 member states of the ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee.
Once all the names have been used, the committee uses the names again in the same order.
For such reasons, the recent Typhoon Prapiroon, which has a name submitted by Thailand... was the second typhoon with that name. The name 'Prapiroon' was first used in 2000.
Of the 140 names, South Korea has submitted 10 names, including Gaemi, Nari, Jangmi and Noru, mostly referring to flowers and animals.
Now with the 8th typhoon of the season having been named Maria from the U.S., the next typhoon of the season will be named Son-Thinh from Vietnam, followed by Ampil from Cambodia.
Kim Mok-yeon, Arirang News.
