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Winter Storm naming has been praised in some circles and criticized in others. To be fair, even as President of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in 2013, I raised some concerns about the practice; however, from a different lens than many other critics. I will explain later.
As Capital Weather Gang recently noted, organizations in Europe have named Low Pressure Systems for decades*Link. The most well known effort is Free University of Berlin's naming system, but there are also naming systems in Norway and Scotland. Even Lake Effect Snow Events in the Buffalo region garnered names when Weather Channel Winter Expert, Tom Niziol, was Meteorologist in Charge at NWS Buffalo.*
Tom is our guest on the show this Sunday. I am so grateful that Tom has agreed to come on the show.*We will treat this topic with the same level of respect and candor as we have done shows on other controversial topics like Storm Chasing or Polar Vortex (and future shows that deal with climate).
The Weather Channel makes the point that naming storms increases public awareness and safety because it better communicates the threat and timing. Bryan Norcross discusses this from the perspective of Nemo and the methodology for naming storms in this USA Today article*Link. Proponents have also noted that naming storms will provide a better and cleaner way of referencing historical storms in the climatological record rather than using the Storm of Century, "Snowmaggedon", or Blizzard of "Pick Your Year". Ironically, these examples illustrate that we*kinda*of name storms already. Anyone remember the term "Frankenstorm?" The Science of Naming Storms at the Weather Channel can be found at this link*Link.
Critics argue that the practice is media hype, self-serving, and confusing to the public. National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini, on a previous show, questioned how to distinguish what to name. Unlike Tropical Cyclones/Hurricanes, which are also named, Winter Events are a bit more heterogenous in terms of stage of development and impact, some like Dr. Uccellini have argued. One can see why Nemo gets named, but should the recent 7-8 feet of snow in Western New York get a name?*
My own personal concern was different and never really from a position of vitriol that I often see in the discussion. While Presiding over the AMS, I felt that AMS, NWA, NWS, WMO or some other mediating body would have been an appropriate forum to filter the idea. In that way, there would be a broader buy-in from the community and media. As it stands now, some organizations and media acknowledge the names, others like the National Weather Service or Associate Press do not, according to Seth Borenstein. This means that the public has to shift "mental" gears when consuming information about a storm from different sources. Many may not be aware of this fact, but Weather Channel colleagues are now working with AMS and others in the Weather Enterprise on steps forward. I know because I was in the room at meeting during last AMS Annual Meeting with stakeholders from NWS, other private companies, and Weather Channel colleagues.
Now having said all of that, I respect the private sector and its ability to innovate and add value to products and services. It is done all of the time, and there are certainly other practices in many organizations that have been criticized or praised. And I often wonder, if the Weather Channel didn't think of this first, was their someone else waiting in the wings to do it. This is speculative, but I am not naive to market forces either. So let's keep it real .
One of the reasons I believe WxGeeks has gained respect and credibility is that we are doing what we said we would do. Deal with ALL of the issues. Our guests are not filtered (ask James Spann) and the neither is the host . Thank you to my colleagues at The Weather Channel for allowing this format to continue to be a voice for everyone in the weather and climate community. In fact, we are taking your questions for the show. Please tweet them to @WxGeeksTWC.
You will want to join us Sunday at Noon ET (11 CT, 10 MT, 9 PT).
Follow us @WxGeeksTWC. You may also follow me @DrShepherd2013.
I saw winter storm Ajax on the news, and searched before starting a topic. Wikipedia and others hate named storms for some reason. But if you try to find a past blizzard on Wikipedia (which will not allows names to be used) often you won't easily find the blizzard you went through.
Even worse, there are two blizzards for the same time and year, making it confusing. Which is why named storms works so well for hurricanes. With out names, it's hard, or impossible, to communicate well.
Winter storm names makes sense and makes life better, so of course the Government and Wikipedia won't even use the names, much less discuss the matter.
The UK has just started naming storms, Scotland was hit by storm Abigail last week, and now the middle of the UK will be affected by the next storm, 'Barney'.
Our winter storms are the infamous east coast lows. Some are worse than the others, but I do think that the very extreme ones, such as those in June 2007, October 2014 and April 2015, should have had names.
TWC said they got the idea after the historic storms of 09/10, where people were using name to try and differentiate between storms. After four unbelievable blizzards, just saying "the February blizzard" or "the December blizzard" no longer was accurate. And saying the dates to differentiate was cumbersome, and it makes no sense when you could just use a single name, and everybody would know exactly what you meant.
Naming them makes sense given that it can get confusing at times when talking about past storms. Italy has started in the last few years, it's gotten much more common last year though
When they had to roll over the alphabet, because there were so many storms, it all started to make sense.
Quote:
Winter Storm Achilles
April 30 - May 4, 2013
Faced with the prospects for an exceptionally rare May snowstorm for the Central Plains and Upper Midwest, The Weather Channel returned to the beginning of the alphabet and named Winter Storm Achilles on Tuesday, April 30.
Having gone through the entire planned alphabetical list of names, we turned to the students at Bozeman (Mont.) High School's Latin class and their proposed list of storm names.
Only notable storms are named in Europe, but I think that's a good thing. If they are talking about 'Abigail', everyone knows what it is. Also easier to remember names than just 'blizzard of 28 December 2011'.
Finnish storms are named after the nameday calendar, so if you remember 'Tapani' but not the day, you can look up the nameday, and look oh, 26th December.
Sure, name away.
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