T

he name Cempaka, known in English as champak, brings to mind an image of a beautifully shaped, fragrant flower.

In the past several days, however, people across Java have associated this sweet name with fear, as a cyclone named Cempaka has brought death and destruction. In Bantul, Yogyakarta, floods have isolated four villages following heavy rains.

Cyclone Cempaka has now weakened, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. He added, however, that people should stay alert as Dahlia, a new tropical cyclone, has been identified over the Indian Ocean.

Dahlia, seen moving from the southwest of Bengkulu to southern Java on Nov. 29, is expected to have a similar impact as her now-dissipated sister.

The two cyclones have and could cause casualties. Then why are they named after such pretty flowers?

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency’s (BMKG) weather forecast and early warning division head Ramlan told The Jakarta Post on Friday that Cempaka and Dahlia are names given by the agency to identify cyclones occurring in its area of jurisdiction.

The authority to name cyclones came from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 2008. Previously, the BMKG would name a cyclone with anything that came to mind. In 2009, it called a tropical storm Durga, after a shadow-puppet character.

“The name was spontaneous,” said Ramlan, “But the character [Durga] possesses destructive qualities.” So, on second thought, the agency realized that a good name should have an element of hope, so they changed the naming system before submitting a list of names to the WMO.

In 2009, the agency proposed a list consisting of 10 cyclones named after flowers or, alternatively, after fruits.

The trend of naming cyclones began decades ago so as to quickly identify storms in warning messages, WMO says on its website, because names are far easier to remember than numbers or technical terms. WMO added that it was easier for the media to report on tropical cyclones if they have names.

In the past, storms were named arbitrarily. Once, an Atlantic storm was named Antje because it ripped out the mast of a boat with the same name.

A trend in the 1990s was to give cyclones feminine names. However, at the end of the 1990s, forecasters began using male names for storms formed in the southern hemisphere, the WMO says.

Another trend was to name cyclones alphabetically, so as to be more organized and efficient.

The same system applies to names of Indonesian cyclones. The tropical storms are not only named after flowers but also alphabetically. The cyclone after Durga, in 2010, was named Anggrek (orchid), followed in 2011 by cyclone Bakung (lily), and then Cempaka and Dahlia.

BMKG has published the names on its website, listing Kenanga (ylang-ylang), Lili (lily), Mangga (mango), Seroja (lotus) and Teratai (water lotus). Alternatively, after the primary list is exhausted, tropical cyclones formed above Indonesian waters will be named after fruits, such as Anggur (grape), Belimbing (star-fruit) and Jambu (guava).

Ramlan said Indonesia tried to name its cyclones in a unique fashion, whereas other regions usually use human names.

“Flowers are beautiful, so we hope the cyclones would be associated with something that is not disastrous,” Ramlan told the Post.

Despite the pretty names, cyclones have to be taken seriously. Cyclones are a different kind of storm compared to other atmospheric vortex’s such as tornadoes, whirlwinds or waterspouts. The diameters of these wind circulations are only a few hundred meters, while cyclones can have diameters of hundreds of kilometers. (nmn)