Naming winter storms.

[techs]

Re: Nemo

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/twcs-plan-to-name-winter-storm/83168

The Weather Channel announced Tuesday that they planned to start naming winter storms, similar to how the National Weather Service names tropical systems. Why?

"-Naming a storm raises awareness.
-Attaching a name makes it much easier to follow a weather system’s progress.
-A storm with a name takes on a personality all its own, which adds to awareness.
-In today’s social media world, a name makes it much easier to reference in communication.
-A named storm is easier to remember and refer to in the future."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/us/winter-storms-name-means-very-little.html?_r=0

The National Weather Service seems to agree(there is no need to name winter storms); it has advised its forecasters not to follow the channel’s lead, and a spokesman said it had never named winter storms and had no plans to do so. (The New York Times advises reporters not to use the names in storm coverage.)


Anyone care about this?

 

[Mixolydian]

The Weather Channel has been a complete joke since NBC took over.

 

[BladeVenom]

They should name the next big snowstorm Peter North.

 

[CPA]

I thought the same thing. I was thinking "hmmm, when I was a kid living in upstate NY, storms never had names"

I think it's a media thing. Helps personalize the storm and draw viewers in.

 

[shortylickens]

"Which adds to awareness"

Bullshit. It adds to entertainment and since the regular news is now nothing more than a ratings game, the fucking weather people have to do the same to keep up.

Anybody here remember when we had a thing called journalism?

 

[Jeff7]

"Which adds to awareness"

Bullshit. It adds to entertainment and since the regular news is now nothing more than a ratings game, the fucking weather people have to do the same to keep up.

Anybody here remember when we had a thing called journalism?

Yeah, that.....OH GOD YOUR AVATAR IS A CUTE LITTLE KITTY!!!! I wish the news covered nothing but stories about cats being adorable!



What were we talking about?

 

[Charles Kozierok]

The Weather Channel announced Tuesday that they planned to start naming winter storms, similar to how the National Weather Service names tropical systems. Why?

Because they're attention-whoring morons. If I hear "Nemo" one more time this week, I'm going to scream.

Tropical cyclones need names for three reasons. One, they can last for weeks. Two, they move unpredictably. Three, there can be several of them active at one time.

None of those apply to winter storms.

 

[Red Squirrel]

lol that's hilarious. Are they going to name every thunder storm too when it's summer?

 

[Charles Kozierok]

This thread inspired me to write a full-fledged rant that I posted on Facebook.

Could someone please find whoever decided to start naming winter storms and smack him or her upside the head a few times? Apparently this was started by the Weather Channel, one of the worse places ever to get weather information IMO. The place is run by a bunch of attention whores, so no surprise that they were behind this. I only hope it doesn't catch on.

Tropical cyclones need names for three reasons:

1. They can last for weeks, so you need a way to refer to them.
2. They can move unpredictably and erratically, so it's not obvious where a storm is now relative to where it will be in a week.
3. There can be several of them active at one time, so if they aren't named, it can get confusing.

None of those apply to winter storms. They move west to east or up the east coast, they are gone in a couple of days, and there's never more than one real storm going at a time.

We had an old system that worked just fine: the date of the storm. Begone with "Nemo" and the other cutesy nonsense.

 

[IronWing]

They need to sell naming rights. "Tomorrow's forecast calls for increasing winds and increasing cloud cover as the Toro Death-by-Snow winter storm system approaches our area."

 

[Jeff7]

lol that's hilarious. Are they going to name every thunder storm too when it's summer?

That depends on how their little ratings experiment turns out.

They need to sell naming rights. "Tomorrow's forecast calls for increasing winds and increasing cloud cover as the Toro Death-by-Snow winter storm system approaches our area."

Oh god please no shutupshutupshutupshutup.

 

[dennilfloss]

They should name the next big snowstorm Peter North.

Cause it's gonna dump a huge load over the Misty Mountains?

 

[weadjust]

 

[SKORPI0]

Perhaps when earthquakes will become predictable they will also be named, before it happens. ^_^:awe:

 

[TXHokie]

Dumb but why not? Beats recycling snowmageddon or snowpocalypse.

 

[AMCRambler]

All this did was freak people out. They were like "Oh my God they named it? Get out of the way I need gas and generators and food. As much as you have."

Seriously I left work late on Thursday and usually at 6:30 the roads are empty. It was friggin mobbed. Run on the grocery stores, gas you name it. So stupid. This is upstate ny w know better than that.

 

[DrPizza]

As everyone else realizes, it's for ratings, and nothing more. Their sensationalism of the weather has led to other stations sensationalizing the weather as well.

Here's their formula. Take the National Weather Service's forecast, and add 50% more of whatever it calls for. 8" of snow in NYC predicted? Let's make it "1 to 2 feet." First I get my weather forecast from NOAA. Then, I glance at other sites. It's amazing how close NOAA comes, and how everyone else seems to make the exception their forecast for everyone. E.g., we know that in Western NY, a narrow 3 mile wide band of snow might dump a lot of snow, and that in particular locations - the first big hills, they will receive a hell of a lot of snow. But, that becomes "much of western NY will be blanketed by up to 2 feet of snow! Why you should panic and tune into our station coming up after the commercials." Meanwhile, NOAA's forecast: 2 to 3 inches of snow for most of Western NY, though a belt of snow moving in from Lake Erie may dump a foot or more snow onto a couple of hills in the ski region.

 

[Jeff7]

As everyone else realizes, it's for ratings, and nothing more. Their sensationalism of the weather has led to other stations sensationalizing the weather as well.

Same sort of phenomenon.

Here's their formula. Take the National Weather Service's forecast, and add 50% more of whatever it calls for. 8" of snow in NYC predicted? Let's make it "1 to 2 feet." First I get my weather forecast from NOAA. Then, I glance at other sites. It's amazing how close NOAA comes, and how everyone else seems to make the exception their forecast for everyone. E.g., we know that in Western NY, a narrow 3 mile wide band of snow might dump a lot of snow, and that in particular locations - the first big hills, they will receive a hell of a lot of snow. But, that becomes "much of western NY will be blanketed by up to 2 feet of snow! Why you should panic and tune into our station coming up after the commercials." Meanwhile, NOAA's forecast: 2 to 3 inches of snow for most of Western NY, though a belt of snow moving in from Lake Erie may dump a foot or more snow onto a couple of hills in the ski region.

Might you use this site, perchance?
They've got some neat probability maps there.

I was warned by family about a big blizzard en route.
1) A big snowstorm of note for this region would have to be pretty bad for me to consider it a serious concern. Snowy day = Oh well, get to work on time.
2) That NOAA map placed me in the 50% chance for even seeing more than 4 inches of snow.
It ended up being some rain and a few inches of snow. Nothing major at all.

Related note: I'm paranoid now about the Weather Underground site, since they sold the organization to The Weather Channel. Time to get out the straitjackets and mittens, so that website visitors can't hurt themselves on dangerous things like maps and numbers.

 

[Slew Foot]

They need to sell naming rights. "Tomorrow's forecast calls for increasing winds and increasing cloud cover as the Toro Death-by-Snow winter storm system approaches our area."

Hey that could solve the budget deficit.

"New Englanders live in fear as Winter storm Trojan dumps piles of liquid on the region"

 

[techs]

The channel’s next names are Orko, Plato and Q.

Q?

 

[Ashley S]

Find it funny naming weather storms, why not just call them..

- Snow storm
- Rain storm
- Wind storm

 

[todpod]

The bad part its going to catch on. The weather underground was using it and people at work kept using "nemo" when they were talking about it.

 

[techs]

The bad part its going to catch on. The weather underground was using it and people at work kept using "nemo" when they were talking about it.

Actually I assume the Weather Channel is waiting for it to catch on then charge for using the names.

 

[Nintendesert]

The bad part its going to catch on. The weather underground was using it and people at work kept using "nemo" when they were talking about it.

Yeah, people at work were doing the same shit.

 

[dank69]

Weird. Local stations were all calling it winter storm Charlotte.