User:Jason Rees/PTSRetirees

Background
During 1944 and the latter stages of the Second World War forecasters from the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) forward weather center on Saipan, started to informally name typhoons using female names. Over the following year the Saipan forward weather center was moved to Guam, while after the Allies had started to liberate the Philippines the USAAF and the USN established new weather centers at Fort McKinley near Manila in the Philippines to facilitate forecasting for Philippine operations. During that season the responsibility for detecting and forecasting typhoons was divided between the centers with Guam using names that started with the letters A — M, while the Philippines used names that started with the letters N — Z. After the Second World War ended the practice of naming typhoons continued until 1958, when typhoons started to be named when they became tropical storms rather than typhoons. During 1959 the US Pacific Command Commander in Chief and the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that the various US Navy and Air-force weather units, would become one unit based on Guam entitled the Fleet Weather Central/Joint Typhoon Warning Center which subsequently started naming the systems for the Western Pacific basin.

The practice of retiring significant names was started during 1955 by the United States Weather Bureau in the Atlantic basin, after hurricanes Carol, Edna, and Hazel struck the Northeastern United States and caused a significant amount of damage in the previous year. Initially the names were only designed to be retired for ten years after which they might be reintroduced, however, it was decided at the 1969 Interdepartmental hurricane conference, that any significant hurricane in the future would have its name permanently retired. Several names have been removed from the Pacific naming lists for various other reasons than causing a significant amount of death/destruction, which include being pronounced in a very similar way to other names and political reasons.

During 1960 Meteorology entered a new era with the launching of the world's first meteorological satellite TIROS-1, the first two tropical cyclone names were retired

During 1963, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) started using local female names to name tropical cyclones in its self defined area of responsibility.

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During the 30th session of the ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee in November 1997, a proposal was put forward by Hong Kong, to give Asian typhoons local names and to stop using the European and American names that had been used since 1945. The committee's Training and Research Coordination Group was subsequently tasked to consult with members and work out the details of the scheme in order to present a list of names for approval at the 31st session. During August 1998, the group met and decided that each member of the committee would be invited to contribute ten names to the list and that five principles would be followed for the selection of names. It was also agreed that each name would have to be approved by each member and that a single objection would be enough to veto a name. A list of 140 names was subsequently drawn up and submitted to the Typhoon Committees 32nd session, who after a lengthy discussion approved the list and decided to implement it on January 1, 2000. It was also decided that the Japan Meteorological Agency would name the systems rather than the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

The practice of retiring significant names was started during 1955 by the United States Weather Bureau in the Atlantic basin, after hurricanes Carol, Edna, and Hazel struck the Northeastern United States and caused a significant amount of damage in the previous year. Initially the names were only designed to be retired for ten years after which they might be reintroduced, however, it was decided at the 1969 Interdepartmental hurricane conference, that any significant hurricane in the future would have its name permanently retired. Several names have been removed from the Pacific naming lists for various other reasons than causing a significant amount of death/destruction. These include the name being misspelled, while the name Ophelia was

The name Ophelia was retired as the system had an "extremely long track" of around 5000 mi, while the name Vamei was retired in 2004 for being the first recorded tropical cyclone near the equator. The name Sonamu was retired after the system caused an unprecedented panic in eastern Malaysia because of the "similar pronunciation of TS Sonamu to tsunami."