From their press release
The Weather Channel announced today its new naming system for winter storms, making it the first national organization in North America to proactively name winter storms. In time for the start of the winter season, naming storms makes communications and information sharing easier, enabling consumers to better understand forecasts that could significantly affect their lives.
“On a national scale, the most intense winter storms acquire a name through some aspect of pop culture and now, social media, for example Snowmaggeddon and Snotober,” said Tom Niziol, winter weather expert for The Weather Channel Companies. “Retrospectively naming lake effect storms has been a local success at The National Weather Service office in Buffalo, NY as well as with Weather Services throughout Europe and we believe it can be a useful tool on a national scale in the U.S.”
The Weather Channel has the meteorological ability, support and technology to bring a more systematic approach to naming winter storms, similar to the way tropical storms have been named for years, staying true to its mission to keep the public safe and informed in times of severe-weather events. During the winter months, many people are impacted by freezing temperatures, flooding and power outages, travel disruptions and other impacts caused by snow and ice storms. The new naming system will raise awareness and reduce the risks, danger, and confusion for consumers in the storms’ paths.
A group of senior meteorologists chose the 26 names (one for each letter of the alphabet) on the 2012-2013 winter storm list. The only criteria: choose names that are not and have never been on any of the hurricane lists produced by the National Hurricane Center or National Weather Service. Naming will occur no more than three days prior to a winter storms expected impact to ensure there is strong confidence the system could have a significant effect on large populations.
In North America, only hurricanes, which are the biggest weather systems on the planet, have been proactively named using a system that has been effective in preparing consumers during the tropical season. The winter naming system will raise consumer awareness, which will lead to better planning and preparedness, resulting in less overall impact – in the same way that names for topical systems raise awareness.
Visit http://wxch.nl/SyPRDs for the complete 2012-2013 winter storm list.
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Over at the Washington Post, The Capital Weather Gang isn’t that impressed. Jason Samenow writes:
But one of the more convincing criticisms of the storm naming initiative I’ve seen originates from Chris McMurry, public relations director for MGH, a Maryland-based advertising agency. His thoughtful blog post – headlined “At the Weather Channel, It’s Marketing First, News Second” is worth reading. The gist of his argument is that TWC may do its audience a disservice by (intentionally or unintentionally) prioritizing “branding” over substance.
A key excerpt:
What makes this Weather Channel decision more about marketing than news is that it, as a ratings-generating television network, gets to set the parameters for what makes for a “name-worthy” winter storm. In essence, there is a profit motive in exclusively branding severe weather events that have the ability to destroy homes and claim lives.
. . .…in this situation, it appears The Weather Channel is driven more by creating a branded product, complete with fancy graphics, than in delivering weather news in the clearest, most commonly understood way, which is what The Weather Channel should stand for. Marketing is important for any business, but when it gets in the way of your mission, perhaps it goes too far.
Full story at WaPo here.
Here’s the list of names they came up with:
Athena: The Greek goddess of wisdom, courage, inspirations, justice, mathematics and all things wonderful.
Brutus: Roman Senator and best known assassin of Julius Caesar.
Caesar: Title used by Roman and Byzantine emperors.
Draco: The first legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece.
Euclid: A mathematician in Ancient Greece, the father of geometry.
Freyr: A Norse god associated with fair weather, among other things.
Gandolf: A character in a 1896 fantasy novel in a pseudo-medieval countryside.
Helen: In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy was the daughter of Zeus.
Iago: Enemy of Othello in Shakespeare’s play, Othello.
Jove: The English name for Jupiter, the Roman god of light and sky.
Khan: Mongolian conqueror and emperor of the Mongol empire.
Luna: The divine embodiment of the moon in Roman mythology.
Magnus: The Father of Europe, Charlemagne the Great, in Latin: Carolus Magnus.
Nemo: A Greek boy’s name meaning “from the valley,” means “nobody” in Latin.
Orko: The thunder god in Basque mythology.
Plato: Greek philosopher and mathematician, who was named by his wrestling coach.
Q: The Broadway Express subway line in New York City.
Rocky: A single mountain in the Rockies.
Saturn: Roman god of time, also the namesake of the planet Saturn in our solar system.
Triton: In Greek mythology, the messenger of the deep sea, son of Poseidon.
Ukko: In Finnish mythology, the god of the sky and weather.
Virgil: One of ancient Rome’s greatest poets.
Walda: Name from Old German meaning “ruler.”
Xerxes: The fourth king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Xerxes the Great.
Yogi: People who do yoga.
Zeus: In Greek mythology, the supreme ruler of Mount Olympus and the gods who lived there.
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I have to think though that with a list like that, which looks like a cross between the movies Star Trek, Harry Potter, and Clash of the Titans, it is going to raise more guffaws than ratings. I know major snow storms bury people alive, but really, Khan?
I thought TWC was firmly in the CAGW camp. If CAGWism is true, we should soon no longer have winter storms. So what do they plan on naming?
Stanley K. says:
October 3, 2012 at 8:35 am
CAGW is confirmed by EVERY KNOWN WEATHER EVENT!!! Just an fyi. Sorry for yelling sarcastically. 🙂
We’ve got snow coming down in Big Horn county MT right at this moment and it is only Oct. 3. Drought for 48 days and now snow and rain.
Doug Huffman says:
October 3, 2012 at 6:39 am
“There is no objective standard of what is a blizzard as there is no objective standard of what is a drought. There is an objective standard of hurricane and a hierarchy, but the hysterical hyperboles would measure them in inflating damage dollars. Eschew sensationalism.”
That’s not correct. While blizzards don’t have a “Saffir-Simpson” or “Fujita” scale, they do have a meteorological definition. This is Environment Canada’s (I expect the NWS version is similar):
When winds of 40 km/hr or greater are expected to cause widespread reductions in visibility to 400 metres or less, due to blowing snow, or blowing snow in combination with falling snow, for at least 4 hours.
For reference, the rest of the EC criteria are here: http://www.ec.gc.ca/meteo-weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=D9553AB5-1
But AGW models were predicting snowstorms would become a thing of the past. Wait ’til our friends start giving names to the lulls between snowstorms…
Note for the above blizzard def in Canada, north of the treeline, the duration is extended to 6 hours. A 4 hour blow would pretty much mean a blizzard warning from November to May up there…. 🙂
There’s a rumour that it will be lowered to 15 minutes north of 60 due to Climate Change….
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/sarc
Think of the marketing, this storm brought to you by,….insert idiot add.
Reportedly the most popular name in the world is Muhammad. Perhaps In the interest of diversity, they could start there.
That might “raise awareness” on many levels.
So how much money is it going to cost us taxpayers to measure these events to determine if they should have a name or not.
Is Q the only word that begins with Q ? I though Q was the James Bond Gizmanager; maybe that was M ? So what does one now call a single granite bowlder in the rockies; izzat maybe a Rockette ??
Here I was thinking that “Burning Man” was the ultimate insanity, and along comes the WC. Well and we all know what the WC is full of !
At least Burning Man was designed to be insane, by the insane, for the insane. If the WC forecasts rain for a softball game or planned outing 3 days in advance I know that it will in fact be a beautiful day.
First snow falling in Wales above 400mtrs. Fairly early, but the forecast is for a cold winter.
Pull My Finger says:
October 3, 2012 at 7:05 am
The legendary Paul Kocin and Louis Uccellini did that already, at least up to 2003. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=northeast+snowstorms
It includes their “NESIS” ratings of the most notable storms (Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale). All true northeast snow freaks should own a set (two large hardcover books). Ahem, I really should read mine. Hey – there’s a photo from Harvey Cedars during the 1962 nor’easter. Dang, I could have used it on my 50th anniversary post….
Paul worked for TWC for a while, even though it meant moving to (mostly) snow-free Atlanta.
How about Snobama?
So they’re not going to use names of hurricanes. But have they told the hurricane namers not to use snow storm names?
Oh c’mon. Everyone in North American knows that Yogi is Yogi Berra and Rocky is Rocky Balboa..
SadButMadLad says:
October 3, 2012 at 12:15 pm
> So they’re not going to use names of hurricanes. But have they told the hurricane namers not to use snow storm names?
That would be the WMO. For Atlantic and Eastern Pacific names, six years of names are available, and then they repeat. I didn’t check everything, but Athena is not listed at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml . The only thing to worry about is when a name gets retired, then gnomes have to choose a replacement to use six years later.
US Weather Service definition:
“Blizzard
(abbrev. BLZD)- A blizzard means that the following conditions are expected to prevail for a period of 3 hours or longer:
Sustained wind or frequent gusts to 35 miles an hour or greater; and
Considerable falling and/or blowing snow (i.e., reducing visibility frequently to less than ¼ mile) ”
We have this frequently with no such definition being placed upon it here in WY. We call it a snow storm. The only difference between it and a regular day is that there is snow with the wind. No one even calls FEMA to see if they will send us some money.
Blizzard Barack, which will be informally called Blizzard Barry, which will cause confusion as the massive piles of white powder will evoke an association with DC mayor Marion Barry.
good lord.
in Maine here, will be damned if I waste time naming storms. what a crock.
I can see it now headline: Weather channel only names 10 snow storms this year… 2012 has had the lowest amount of named storms in history… must be “climate change and that damn CO^2”!
Basically we will have another “hole in the ozone scare” where the media try’s to scare you into following what the hippies want.
Walda?
As in Where’s Walda?
Their list does bring up the same questions – will the same names be used, will there be rotating lists, will deadly/expensive storms be retired?
And the most important question – who cares?
Didn’t read the comments so…
The storm of ’47 just doesn’t stick as well as snowstorm Katrina! It’s a psychological thing.
DaveE.
“Retrospectively naming lake effect storms has been a local success at The National Weather Service office in Buffalo, NY as well as with Weather Services throughout Europe and we believe it can be a useful tool on a national scale in the U.S.”
I may have missed it (unlikely) but to my knowledge it hasn’t been done in UK.
Now UK IS part of Europe (geographically) so the phrase “throughout Europe is clearly WRONG. It is therefore either a careless mistake by Weather Channel or an outright LIE. If I was a betting man I know which I would bet on.
BTW, it looks like what might be called Pacific Polar Storm #1 is coming ashore this weekend in Washington State.
Hi,
You’ll be surprised about what I’ve found on the web, just take a look
Best Wishes, gerjaison