Cyclone is the name given to a rotating storm specific to the earth’s southern hemisphere. It was first used by Henry Piddington (1797 – 1858), a merchant sea captain whose trade journeys in the Indian and Chinese seas brought him into close contact with the best and worst of tropical weather.
After retiring from sailing at the age of 33 Piddington became a writer, and his Sailor’s Horn-book for the Laws of Storms in all Parts of the World tracked 50 years of cyclones in Asia. Promoted by the Indian government, it became a standard text on tropical storms. The book suggests that for the “class of circular or highly curved winds” the word cyclone be used. Derived from the Greek word cucloma (“coil of a snake”) it is an evocative description of one of nature’s most devastating phenomena.
In the northern hemisphere, many children will associate the word with something far less threatening. The Coney Island Cyclone, a snaking roller coaster which opened in 1927, continues to attract thousands of customers each week at a cost of USD 9 per ride. Meanwhile the Indian state of Orissa, many of whose citizens would see USD 9 as a typical weekly wage, is faced with the devastation of Cyclone Phailin. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have suffered repeatedly; the Bhola cyclone of 1970 killed an estimated half a million people.
Like many natural phenomena, cyclones have sometimes changed the course of history. In 1281 a devastating cyclone hit Hakata Bay just as Mongol hordes were invading Japan. The coiling snake from the skies protected Japan’s shores against attackers who had annihilated China and the Middle East. The Japanese described this intervention as a wind of the gods. Their word for this? Kamikaze.
