Naming Winter Storms

I demand that The Weather Channel (TWC) stop the ridiculous practice of naming winter storms.

According to Wikipedia:

In November 2012, TWC began systematically naming winter storms, starting with the November 2012 nor'easter it named "Winter Storm Athena." TWC compiled a list of winter storm names for the 2012–13 winter season. It would only name those storms that are "disruptive" to people, said Bryan Norcross, a TWC senior director. TWC's decision was met with criticism from other weather forecasters, who called the practice self-serving and potentially confusing to the public. 

It is more than self-serving for TWC to name winter storms. It is an egotistical affront to the weather-watching public. Who the hell does TWC think it is? It’s my winter storm and your winter storm as much as it’s TWC’s.

What if everyone claimed the right to assign names to things? The Suwannee River would be the Wilbur River to one person and the Pedro River to another. Stephen Foster would have been out of luck. Way down upon the Bob River doesn’t have the same ring to it.

This practice of naming winter storms is a patent attempt by TWC to sensationalize a weather event in order to attract more viewers. Instead of it just being a snow storm, it’s now a storm with a name so we better pay attention to it.

Because the storm now has a name, TWC has an excuse to have “Weather Alerts” and “Storm Coverage” instead of the boring region by region weather reports it usually features. It can kill air time by cutting to Jim Cantore or some TWC weather chick standing on a street corner wearing their Weather Channel baseball caps and parkas to show us snow accumulating on a street or a downed power line or a tree that’s fallen on a house.

The outside shots of weather reporters on the scene are boringly the same whether it’s a hurricane or a snowstorm. When you’ve seen one video of snow falling on a street you’ve pretty much seen them all. The worst is when TWC reports on California wildfires. It’s always the same old shots of a burning ridge taken from five miles away or a plane dropping fire retardant. I’m convinced it’s stock footage of the same wildfire. I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell the difference between one California mountain ridge and another. (When isn’t there a wildfire in California threatening to burn homes? If it happens all the time is it really news? It would be newsworthy if some part of California was not burning.)

There was a time when people knew that snow storms and blizzards happened from time to time in the winter, and they accepted it as a fact of life. Only the really big storms got special recognition, and these were so rare that it was enough to refer to the year they happened, as in the Blizzard of ’49 or the Great Storm of 1908. Now, If TWC gets it way, every Tom, Dick, and Harry winter storm gets a name, and the really memorable ones will go down in history with wimpy names like Winter Storm Buffy or Chad or Lamont. If I were a real blizzard, I’d be embarrassed.

Who decides whether a storm is bad enough to get a name? According to TWC, the storm gets a name only if it is “disruptive” to people. What type of standard is that? Crying kids on airplanes, listening to Al Gore, and stepping in dog poop are disruptive to me, but they are hardly name worthy events. Unlike tropical storms and hurricanes that have definitive and measurable criteria, deciding whether a winter storm is disruptive or not seems awfully subjective to me. I like to wear cowboy hats so any heavy breeze is disruptive to me. Does that mean it deserves a name?

Who are the people who have to be disrupted in order for a storm to deserve a name? Are we talking about prissy little metrosexuals who work in air conditioned offices, drink latte coffee, and read the New York Times theater reviews or real manly men who work outside, drink convenience store coffee that’s been sitting in the pot for five hours, and read Guns and Ammo magazine?

The last big winter storm was called Pax. What the hell type of name is that? Is it a boy’s name or a girl’s name, or does it matter anymore? It sounds like the type of name that people in California give their kids. What wrong with good old American names like Billy, Mary, Abdul, Jesus, or Shanice, or really American names like Red Cloud, Black Elk, and Two Dogs F--king?

Did the folks at TWC think about the potential conflict that may arise by giving people names to winter storms and hurricanes? One day we could have Hurricane Lawanda and Winter Storm Lawanda in the same year.

If we have to name winter storms, let’s give them names that cannot be confused with hurricane names. One suggestion would be to use animal names. There are thousands of different mammals, fish, reptiles, and insects, so there would be no fear of having to repeat a name. Winter Storm Baboon, Winter Storm Flounder, and Winter Storm Dung Beetle are great names for winter storms. It would be easier to remember that you had snow up to your ass in Winter Storm Tufted Titmouse than in Winter Storm Charles.

Another, and perhaps better, suggestion would be to name winter storms after cartoon characters. You could have names like Winter Storm Goofy, Winter Storm Foghorn Leghorn, and Winter Storm Betty Boop. (For the record, I have always liked Foghorn Leghorn: “Son, I say, son, are you some kind of chicken hawk?”).

I say we should ignore any winter storm that The Weather Channel has given a name. It would be like the Amish practice of shunning. All we have to do is not acknowledge that Winter Storm Reggie or Dwayne or Keyshawn or whatever exists, and TWC will soon get the message that we are not going to play its game.