Just a lot of hot air? ‘Isis’ struck off UN list of hurricane names

Published April 19th, 2015 - 02:00 GMT
Al Bawaba
Al Bawaba

Isis was removed from the official list of future Pacific hurricane names by the UN's World Meteorological Organization, a WMO spokeswoman announced Friday.

The WMO Hurricane Committee deemed the name inappropriate because of the eponymous militant group.

The name of an ancient goddess of Egypt, Isis had been on the WMO list of names for hurricanes in 2016.

ISIS is also used to describe the Islamic State militant group (Daesh), whose forces have captured large swathes of Iraq and Syria.

The group stands accused of committing brutal atrocities against civilians by UN war crimes investigators. 

Spokeswoman Clare Nullis said from Geneva: "The Hurricane Committee removed the name Isis from the rotating list and agreed to replace it with Ivette."

"Names are knocked off the list, which rotates every six years, if they are considered inappropriate if they caused too much damage and too much death."

She added that this was not the case with Isis.

The WMO has rotating lists of storm names for various regions that run from A to Z alternating between male and female.

The proposal by the WMO regional center was endorsed by the committee. The group, which is composed of experts from 27 member states and territories, was meeting in Costa Rica this week.

The Hurricane Committee also backed Mexico's request to retire the name Odile and decided on Odalys as its replacement to be used for the 2020 season. Odile hit the popular beach resorts of Baja California September, stranding thousands of tourists, knocking out power and causing heavy flooding.

"Tropical cyclone activity during the 2014 eastern North Pacific hurricane season was well above normal," according to the WMO. 

Of the 20 tropical storms that formed last year, 14 became hurricanes, according to the WMO. Most tropical cyclones were created by tropical waves moving from the Caribbean to the North Pacific. 

[This story has been edited from the source material.]

Subscribe

Sign up to our newsletter for exclusive updates and enhanced content