ListNook

Polar_Reflection Apr 11, 2026 +85

I still need a geographic breakdown on where these storms are considered typhoons vs hurricanes vs cyclones. I had thought western pacific was always called typhoons

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ry-yo Apr 11, 2026 +59

I was interested too. From the wiki page for [cyclone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone): >In the Atlantic and the northeastern Pacific oceans, a tropical cyclone is generally referred to as a hurricane (from the name of the ancient Central American deity of wind, Huracan), in the Indian and south Pacific oceans it is called a cyclone, and in the northwestern Pacific it is called a typhoon.

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Current-Brain-1983 Apr 11, 2026 +26

And typhoon is anglicization (sp?) of the Cantonese words dai fung, literally, big wind.

26

Fallouttgrrl Apr 12, 2026 +10

As opposed to cyclones in the South Pacific, named after the visored x-men character "cyclops" It's about the eye

10

madcoins Apr 12, 2026 +4

Scott Summers is the man

4

Fallouttgrrl Apr 12, 2026 +4

The man The myth The hurricane

4

Polar_Reflection Apr 12, 2026 +2

Canto or mando? In mandarin it's tai feng which sounds even closer but iono where the name was first anglicized

2

Polar_Reflection Apr 11, 2026 +9

Ah so both indian and southern pacific are cyclones 👍

9

chetlin Apr 12, 2026 +1

Kind of a dumb name because these are all different names for **tropical** cyclones, so just calling them cyclone is using a less specific term. But it's become entrenched enough and probably won't easily change.

1

DNABeast Apr 11, 2026 +1

Curiously this means that you can have cyclones that erupt in the northern hemisphere (and thus spin opposite to every other cyclone) if they start in the very north of the Indian Ocean. Typhoons, hurricanes and cyclones all fall under the umbrella term ‘Cyclonic storms’

1

ZealousidealPost1268 Apr 12, 2026 +1

It’s just what they call tropical storms, their spin is still opposite directions based on what side of the equator they start in (and they never cross from north to south or vice versa, or I guess you would say they always disperse as the coriolis force is 0 at the euator) so a tropical storm in the north hemisphere in the indian ocean is called a cyclone but it spins counter clockwise and one in the south is a cyclone that spins clockwise

1

DNABeast Apr 12, 2026

It’s my understanding that a tropical storm doesn’t have the rotation that a cyclonic storm does.

0

ZealousidealPost1268 Apr 12, 2026 +1

Hurricane/cyclone/typhoon are just different names for a tropical storm, why you use one name over another is just a arbitrary categorisation we’ve applied to distinguish the region affected Arbitrary in my opinion because like you say otherwise they should name a tropical storm on the northern hemisphere of the Indian ocean a hurricane but they don’t

1

Unnecessary_Bunny_ Apr 11, 2026 +9

In NZ it's called a cyclone because we are in the South Pacific (not West)

9

raroshraj Apr 11, 2026 +2

Ten thousand thundering typhoons

2

lapsuscalamari Apr 12, 2026 +1

Presumably caused by billions of blue blistering barnacles

1

Slaidback Apr 12, 2026 +1

The different names are really cultural , they are all the same thing. Hurricane for North America, Typhoon ( anglicised as stated below) for Asia, and cyclone for everyone else.

1

MikeOKurias Apr 11, 2026 +39

I'm guessing they either don't name cyclones in alphabetical order (like they do hurricanes) or that side of the world had one hell of a year for them.

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DaBluBoi8763 Apr 11, 2026 +72

They do name them alphabetically but unlike Atlantic they don't start with 'A' name when new season begins, instead they use next name from list which stretches for 3 or 4 alphabetical sets of 25 names. For eg. last season ended with Cyclone Tam, so first storm for this season was Cyclone Urmil

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MikeOKurias Apr 11, 2026 +34

Thank you for turning my offhanded quip into an opportunity to learn, that's pretty cool.

34

GoreSeeker Apr 12, 2026 +1

You know, that makes more sense, especially if they are infrequent.

1

theanswerprocess Apr 11, 2026 +16

It's the opposite side of the world, so they name their cyclones starting backwards from z

16

raftsa Apr 11, 2026 +4

Things get confusing when inaccurate terms are used, which is the case here The headline is calling it a cyclone - It hasn't been a true cyclone for couple of days as it is now ex tropical and its in a state of decay. The central pressure is now up to 975 and expected 990 in the early hrs of Sunday morning. It should be calling it tropical storm Vaianu or ex tropical cyclone Vaianu as other media outlets have slowly but painfully slowly, started to do as it isn't a cyclone. It will still do damage, don’t get me wrong - but calling it a cyclone is inaccurate.

4

CloudsOfMagellan Apr 11, 2026 +13

In what world is cyclones in new Zealand normal

13

cheshire-cats-grin Apr 11, 2026 +39

They are rare comparatively- but they happen. One our worse disasters was when the ferry Wahine was sunk by Cyclone Giselle in 1968 killing 51 people.

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teakhop Apr 11, 2026 +11

Just to be clear, the Cyclone caused the ferry to run aground on rocks at the entrance to Wellington harbour, it didn't sink it directly, but it was obviously a contributing factor...

11

exsnakecharmer Apr 12, 2026 +12

Every few years we’ll get one. Cyclone Giselle, Cyclone Bola, Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023…

12

Hugh_Maneiror Apr 11, 2026 +3

It is quite normal as they are strong extra tropical remnants, which also hit Ireland with some regularity, or occassionally places like the Gulf of Biscay or Alaska

3

newaccount252 Apr 11, 2026

It wasn’t a cyclone when it hit. It was also f*** all, just a normal storm.

0

Enzown Apr 12, 2026 +5

Tell that to Ohope and Whakatane, they'll be stoked to know the storm actually did f*** all.

5

No_Bumblebee5765 Apr 11, 2026 +1

Brutal. Does new zealand often get cyclones?

1

Beeeees_ Apr 13, 2026 +1

Every couple of years, we had cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 which was pretty devastating, other big ones off the top of my head are cyclone bola and cyclone Giselle (which lead to our worst maritime disaster). We are also increasingly having “once in a hundred year” storms - e.g. at the end of January we had a huge storm that affected a lot of the same areas that got hit by ex-Cyclone Vaianu and caused multiple deaths across the north island

1

HateHumansLoveDogs Apr 11, 2026 +1

well now 2026 may be an interesting year for typhoons/cyclones ...i wouldnt be surprised if a big one hit along the west coast tbh. Wont see much hurricane activity in the Atlantic prob, but the pacific may really ramp up this year.

1

samurguybri Apr 12, 2026 +1

Hang in there, folks. Be safe and look out for one another.

1

terriblespellr Apr 13, 2026 +1

It was fine false alarm.

1

mojowit Apr 11, 2026 -9

Send in the kids from Stranger Things. They’ll defeat this Vaianu thing.

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New Zealand’s North Island braces for Cyclone Vaianu with thousands ordered to evacuate

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