3 ms·

Is there a benefit to naming weather events? I'm not able to read the entire article because of paywall, so I'm not sure if it discusses this.

ianhawes 4y ago
Anecdotally, in the US we name tropical storms and hurricanes. There have been cases in the past where storms that were just as severe that did not originate in the Atlantic were never named and caused significant damage. There was a push several years ago by popular weather broadcast channels (that effectively re-package and re-sell National Weather Service data and forecasts) to begin naming winter storms in the same fashion as hurricanes. The NWS put out a strong warning to their own forecasters to NOT use those names in official materials. Then there is the trend by news media to replace “hurricane” with “Superstorm” when a storm causes a particularly high dollar amount of damage but may not have maintained hurricane force winds or simply because it hit a densely populated area. The definition of superstorm precludes any other named meteorological event such as a hurricane. But superstorm sounds better than hurricane.
tumetab1 4y ago
It facilitates communication which is specially important when discussing wheater events that can cause harm. Example: "The Zoe heatwave is comming" "The Zoe heatwave has increased in severity" "Local Officials decided to restrict forest activies due to Zoe heatwave" By glance, or just reading titles, an average person knows about the danger and it's incomming. It's harder to get that information on unnamed weather phenomems. Example: "A heatwave is comming" "A heatwave is worse than expected" "Local Officials decided to restrict forest activies due to incoming heatwave" NOAA info on related subject https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/storm-names.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/storm-names.html

ianhawes 4y ago

Anecdotally, in the US we name tropical storms and hurricanes. There have been cases in the past where storms that were just as severe that did not originate in the Atlantic were never named and caused significant damage. There was a push several years ago by popular weather broadcast channels (that effectively re-package and re-sell National Weather Service data and forecasts) to begin naming winter storms in the same fashion as hurricanes. The NWS put out a strong warning to their own forecasters to NOT use those names in official materials. Then there is the trend by news media to replace “hurricane” with “Superstorm” when a storm causes a particularly high dollar amount of damage but may not have maintained hurricane force winds or simply because it hit a densely populated area. The definition of superstorm precludes any other named meteorological event such as a hurricane. But superstorm sounds better than hurricane.

tumetab1 4y ago

It facilitates communication which is specially important when discussing wheater events that can cause harm. Example: "The Zoe heatwave is comming" "The Zoe heatwave has increased in severity" "Local Officials decided to restrict forest activies due to Zoe heatwave" By glance, or just reading titles, an average person knows about the danger and it's incomming. It's harder to get that information on unnamed weather phenomems. Example: "A heatwave is comming" "A heatwave is worse than expected" "Local Officials decided to restrict forest activies due to incoming heatwave" NOAA info on related subject https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/storm-names.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/storm-names.html