GC: n

S: http://www.odihpn.org/humanitarian-exchange-magazine/issue-41/negotiating-humanitarian-access-to-cyclone-affected-areas-of-myanmar-a-review (last access: 27 June 2015); http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/16/tropical-cyclone-pam-australia-sends-humanitarian-aid-to-vanuatu (last access: 27 June 2015).

N: 1. 1848, coined by British East India Company official Henry Piddington to describe the devastating storm of December 1789 in Coringa, India; irregularly formed from Greek kyklon “moving in a circle, whirling around,” present participle of kykloun “move in a circle, whirl,” from kyklos “circle”. Applied to tornados from 1856.
2. Cyclone, any large system of winds that circulates about a centre of low atmospheric pressure in a counterclockwise direction north of the Equator and in a clockwise direction to the south. Cyclonic winds move across nearly all regions of the Earth except the equatorial belt and are generally associated with rain or snow. Also occurring in much the same areas are anticyclones, wind systems that rotate about a high-pressure centre. Anticyclones are so called because they have a flow opposite to that of cyclones.

S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cyclone (last access: 27 June 2015). 2. EncBrit – http://global.britannica.com/science/cyclone-meteorology (last access: 27 June 2015).

SYN:
S:

CR: cyclogenesis, explosive cyclogenesis, erosion, eruption, hurricane, jet stream, natural disaster, thunderstorm, storm.