2008-2009 tropical cyclone season, etc.

[Calasanjy]

Something curious is going on. I was expecting that since only six months remain until the start of the 2008-2009 tropical cyclone season, that the namelist for the Southwest Indian Ocean would have been posted. The procedure for at least the past decade has been for the WMO tropical cyclone committee for this area to hold semiannual sessions in the fall and draft namelists for the seasons beginning in the fall of the following year and the fall of the year after that. There has, however, been quite a bit of variation in the naming procedure throughout the years. Apparently the meeting originally scheduled for October 2007 had been postponed to "sometime in 2008," according to the WMO schedule. This makes me wonder if the member nations are experiencing political tension or if the meeting had to be delayed for some other reason.

In addition, does anyone here know which western Pacific TC names from the 2007 season have been retired??? Also, any word on the TCWC Jakarta status? Thanks for all the information anyone could provide.

[Coredesat]

I think the WMO/ESCAP Typhoon Committee meets later this year to discuss retiring any WPAC names from last year, if any are to be retired.

As for the 2008-09 SWIO name list, I'm not sure what the policy for that is. Technically, the actual 2008-09 season doesn't start until November, but they should still have a name list before the beginning of the 2008-09 TC year (July 1). I'm not sure when they meet to discuss this.

No one knows about TCWC Jakarta, as far as I can find. It would have been nice if 92S had developed, to give an indication of Jakarta's readiness, but I expect them not to have a list ready this season (given that the TC year started in July).

[P.K.]

Also with TCWC Jakarta their page with the outlooks etc only has sample pages there at the moment so it looks like they are not ready just yet.

[Calasanjy]

And five months later and nearly one month away from the delineated beginning of the season, there is no official word on the upcoming name list(s). I noticed from the WMO website that there is an RA-I committee training workshop ongoing until the 30th, wonder if they are going to draft the lists there instead of holding a regular session.

In addition, every name list I can find still has the Perth, Darwin, and Brisbane names going back to the 2004/05 season marked for replacement with no replacements given. Such storms as Ingrid, Larry, and Monica still have their names listed. Does anyone know of any replacements? Thanks for the info if so

[Calasanjy]

Very curious that none of the TCWCs in the southern hemisphere have recently updated their name lists. Perhaps the La Reunion/Madagascar TCWCs decided not to predesignate a name list and instead wish to issue random names to storms as they form a la TCWC Jakarta.

[Chacor]

We'll know when the TCOP comes out.