NEW YORK — If you see that a storm named Dim-sum is gathering steam in the Pacific Ocean, it’s not an error.
In June, as the Pacific typhoon season began, the Hong Kong Observatory said it had chosen the city’s bite-sized cuisine as its latest contribution to the list of names for tropical cyclones that form in the Pacific.
It is not the first time that Hong Kong has named a storm after a beloved symbol. Typhoon Dolphin, which brought heavy rains to China, Taiwan and Japan over the weekend, takes its name from the city’s animal mascot.
Dolphin will be followed by two tropical storms that have formed in the Pacific: Peilou, named by Macau for the spoonbill bird, and Chan-hom, named after a Laotian tree.
These names are compiled by the Typhoon Committee, which was formed in 1968 by the United Nations (UN) and the World Meteorological Organisation to help Asia Pacific countries prepare for tropical storms. The committee maintains an active list of 140 names, divided into five columns, that it cycles through every four or five years, depending on the frequency of storms.
Each of the committee’s 14 members — including the United States, China, the Koreas, Hong Kong and Malaysia — contributes 10 names. They are drawn from each member’s language and culture, resulting in storms named for animals, plants, historical and mythological figures, and, of course, food.
That means Dim-sum will eventually be joined by typhoons such as Gaeguri (frog, in Korean), Burapha (the Thai word for “east”) and Tirou (a Micronesian greeting), according to the committee’s latest list of names released in March.
Here is how the system works.
US forecasters started the naming practice.
Tropical cyclones form when warm ocean water, moist air and light winds persist long enough to combine into systems that produce violent winds, large waves and torrential rain. Those that form over the western Pacific Ocean and affect Asia are called typhoons.
During World War II, meteorologists in several Asian countries were prevented from working by occupying Japanese forces because weather forecasts were considered sensitive military intelligence, Rey Lirios, a historian at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, said in an interview. After the war, those countries relied on American military forecasters in the US Pacific territory of Guam.
To distinguish among storms, American forecasters first compiled a list of female names, often drawn from their wives and girlfriends, according to meteorologists. In the 1970s, amid the gender equality movement, the US government began adding male names, Lam Chiu Ying, a former director of the Hong Kong Observatory, said in a 2017 video interview.
Some naming processes are open to the public.
Members of the Typhoon Committee pushed to replace American names with regional ones in the 1990s. Some opened the process to the public.
“We wanted to leave all of the old names behind in the 20th century,” said Lirios, who created the criteria for the Philippines’ public submissions in 1999.
He said the Typhoon Committee rejected names that were indecent or carried negative connotations in other languages. Storms also cannot be named for public figures, including politicians and celebrities.
In 2005, the committee rejected two names chosen by the public in Hong Kong. Taichi, the ancient Chinese martial art, could be mistaken as a Japanese man’s name, while Kapok, the cotton tree, sounded like a slang term for sexual organs in some languages, Mr Lam said.
Dim-sum, by contrast, was uncontroversial. Lui Yuk Sing, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong Observatory, said it was selected by the public in 2024, along with Sparrow and Shui-sin, the Cantonese word for daffodil.
The names reflect regional culture.
Aside from Dim-sum and Dolphin, Hong Kong has submitted Banyan, named for the tree, and Lionrock, for a mountain overlooking the city.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said in an email that it typically contributes the Japanese names of constellations, such as Koinu (“puppy,” for Canis Minor) and Koguma (“bear cub,” for Ursa Minor). The committee’s list also includes mythological figures such as the Chinese folk heroine Mulan, the Micronesian nature goddess Sinlaku and the Vietnamese mountain god Son Tinh.
Malaysia submits the names of native flora and fauna that are easy to pronounce, like the Cempaka flower, said Mazly Bin Mohamed, a spokesperson for the Malaysian Meteorological Department. Other countries also draw inspiration from nature, including Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, Thailand’s Khanun (meaning “jackfruit”) and the Philippines’ Mount Amuyao.
Because the Philippines is typically one of the first countries in a typhoon’s path, Filipino meteorologists assign storms a local name, Lirios said.
For example, Typhoon Jangmi, which caused heavy flooding in the Philippines and Japan in early June, was known in the Philippines as Domeng, a local diminutive of Domingo.
The names of deadly storms are often removed from the list.
Some names are retired after becoming associated with particularly devastating or deadly storms.
The Philippines stopped using the local name Yolanda after the 2013 typhoon that killed more than 6,000 people. The Typhoon Committee retired the storm’s official name, Haiyan, in 2015.
This year, the committee added Dim-sum to the list to replace Man-yi, which was retired after the storm caused more than a dozen deaths in the Philippines in 2024.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
