On February 27, during the 51st session of the Typhoon Committee, the typhoon names of Rumbia and Mangkhut were retired. As an ad hoc agenda of the annual meeting, the session will retire the names of typhoons which exerted grave impacts in the past year according to the proposals of TC members and designated the new names for the prior retired typhoon names.

During this session, the Philippines proposed the retirement of the name of the 22th typhoon of the year 2018, Mangkhut, and China proposed the retirement of the name of 18th typhoon of 2018, Rumbia. Besides, the countries naming typhoon Mangkhut and Rumbia, Thailand and Malaysia, will propose the new typhoon names in place of these two names in the next session of TC.

Typhoon Mangkhut was an extremely powerful tropical cyclone that brought widespread damages to Guam, the Philippines and South China in mid September, 2018. Around 5:00 p.m. of September 16, 2018, it made landfall in Taishan coast of Jiangmen City, Guangdong.

On August 15, 2018, a tropical depression in the East China Sea strengthened into Tropical Storm Rumbia. Rumbia made landfall over Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China on August 17.

The session has also passed the agenda of the new typhoon names replacing the retired typhoon names of the year 2017.

The 13th Typhoon Hato of 2017 is replaced by the new name of Yamaneko, meaning a wild cat, which is provided by Japan.

The 21th Typhoon Tembin is replaced by the new name of Koinu, which means a little dog, which is also provided by Japan.

The 23th Typhoon Kai-tak is replaced by the new name of Yun-yeung, which is provided by Hong Kong, China.

Since 2002, names of 45 typhoons generated over Northwest Pacific and South China Sea have been retired. (Feb. 28)

Reporter: Zhang Yong

Editor: Liu Shuqiao