The Weather Channel has decided to play weather god around the country. Taking a cue from the National Weather Service which names hurricanes and cyclones, the folks at the Weather Channel decided we should have names for major winter storms.
I guess they never bothered to ask anyone here in the Northwest, who regularly get legendary winter storms that already have names. Instead of the Thanksgiving Day Storm of 1983, the Weather Channel wants to call them by Greek names, like Athena, Brutus, Caesar and Freyr.
Rarely have I heard such stupidity. Not since Lloyds of London announced that ships should no longer be referred to as “shes” but rather “its” has anyone come up with something as inane as naming a winter storm.
Now, I know it’s a very cool marketing idea. It will get headlines. Who doesn’t want to cover a winder storm named Triton or Nemo. However, I’m not sure I could ever be frightened of a storm named Helen or Euclid. Michelle? Hell yes! But Virgil? Virgil is a paste eater. Even Gus Grissom, one of the original seven astronauts, didn’t go by Virgil. It’s a sissy’s name.
I’m also pretty ambivalent about Saturn, Rocky and Q. Plato is a storm to ponder for sure, but Yogi? It’s unbearable. Unless it hits Jellystone Park.
My first big storm was the Columbus Day Storm. It was so big it doesn’t even require the date. On the anniversary of the Columbus Day Storm, it is fittingly rainy out, our first rain in something like 80 days. Fifty years ago in 1962, we had 85 mile an hour winds, Renton where I lived hit 100 and out on the coast the winds were 150. Forty six people died, 53,000 houses were damaged and we went without power at my house for about 10 days.
I was only four. But I still remember looking out in the yard after the storm had passed. It was literally forest green. You could walk across the branches and never touch the grass.
This storm would have never been called Kahn or Luna. It was the Columbus Day Storm. Period.
And who around here doesn’t remember the Inaugural Day Storm of 1993? Or the 1979 and 1990 winter storms that closed and then sunk two floating bridges. In fact, the storm here on March 12 and 13 in 1993 is known as the Storm of the Century. It has been touted as the strongest extratropical storm ever to strike the United States. The average snowfall was 6 to 10 inches, with winds in the 50 to 70 mile an hour range.
I wasn’t here for the 2006 Mid December Storm. I’m sure most of my Washington friends remember it. It caused the biggest power outage in Seattle City Light history. Me I was basking in the mid 70s heat of Florida. We have named storm there. And that’s OK with me, because a real weather agency decided to name them, not a cable TV station.
I was here for the Thanksgiving Day Storm. The night before was the night I learned to drink wine. I had way too much of it too, having my own storm in the back of Bernie McKee’s brand new car, offloading some chunky cargo onto his floorboards. I was so hungover the next morning that I don’t really remember the storm itself. I just wanted to die, especially when I got caught up in the family tempest waiting for me at home, having “ruined” everyone else’s Thanksgiving, something a named storm couldn’t manage on its own.
I have to wonder what AccuWeather or even Jeff Renner at KING TV thinks of this storm naming nonsense. I’m sure they aren’t too thrilled to jump on the Weather Channel’s bandwagon when it comes to storm names.
I’m not even sure Jeff could pronounce Freyr or Ukko. I’m sure he could get “Q” down pat, though I think that’s a better name for a secret agent than it is for a major storm.
I can’t see people in Washington State recounting the storm, “Man, do you remember the Q storm? It was way worse than Helen.”
I could even see the point if we were asked for our opinion on the names. Why Greek names? Why not the warrior ones? Why Athena, the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, justice and match? What the hell does this have to do with a storm where we are struggling to stay warm, dry and out of harm’s way? Wouldn’t Attila be better?
Athena makes a better hurricane name. When I was in Florida, I went through three hurricanes in my first three months there – Charlie, Frances and Jeane. Ivan also stopped by for a short period of time.
Here’s a hurricane in a nutshell. It’s any winter storm we have in Seattle where the winds are howling and the rain is falling. Now, I’ve only been in Cat 2/borderline 3 storms, so I can only speak to those. But I can say that once the wind gets over 85 or so, you really can’t tell the difference, unless your windows blow in and your roof flies off.
If the power goes out, you don’t freeze to death. Oh sure, you’ll swelter in the heat because you don’t have any AC. Wah! In Seattle in the dead of winter, or any other part of the northern states, when the power goes out you freeze to death.
Remember the 1996 Ice Storm? 300,000 homes were without power. Ours was one of them. Our power was out for four days, the temperature inside the house dipped below 55 and was dropping fast. It’s the coldest I have ever been. If it hadn’t been for the neighbors who came to the rescue of the “Too Stupid to Buy a Cord of Wood” family, we would have been frozen solid.
I’d hate to think that I would have been turned to ice in a storm the Weather Channel named Helen or Euclid. Sorry Weather Channel, these names aren’t epic enough for use Pacific Northwesterners. I think you need to go back to the storm naming drawing board and try again. We’re sticking with the ones we already have.
In the Emerald City, wondering what Mother Nature has in store for us this winter,
– Robb