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Typhoon 04W: The meaning of Mawar

By Dave Ornauer
Published: June 3, 2012

For those new to the Pacific, typhoons are not named for men and women as they are in the States. Long about 10 years ago, they changed out here to a system of assigning different words contributed by Asian nations. Some of those names, such as Saomai, which twice in a seven-year span devastated the areas it struck, was retired and replaced with another name. Typhoon Mawar, currently bearing down on Okinawa, is a Malaysian word for rose. Thorny, indeed. Get a full look at all typhoon names by clicking here.

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About the Author


Dave Ornauer has been with Stars and Stripes since March 5, 1981. One of his first assignments as a beat reporter in the old Japan News Bureau was “typhoon chaser,” a task which he resumed virtually full time since 2004, the year after his job, as a sports writer-photographer, moved to Okinawa and Ornauer with it.

As a typhoon reporter, Ornauer pores over Web sites managed by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center as well as U.S. government, military and local weather outlets for timely, topical information. Pacific Storm Tracker is designed to take the technical lingo published on those sites and simplify it for the average Stripes reader.