U.K. now names winter storms; Newly named Abigail
Posted by
Chris in Tampa on 11/12/2015, 4:56 am
Oh Weather Channel, what have you started.
Well, I blame them. Could be coincidental. I used to have a warning on my site about winter storms not being officially named. Since one government is, I am removing that.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/hurricane-kate-races-across-atlantic-severe-weather-threatens-midwest
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2015/storm-Abigail
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2015/Name-our-storms-list
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/in-depth/name-our-storms
https://twitter.com/metoffice
It's got a hash tag, so it's totally official now:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/StormAbigail?src=hash
If Ex-Kate were to come knocking though, she would keep her name.
"To avoid any confusion over naming, if a storm is the remnants of a tropical storm or hurricane that has moved across the Atlantic, the already established method of referring to it as, e.g. 'Ex-hurricane X' will continue."
But there is this oddity:
"To ensure we are in line with the US National Hurricane Centre naming convention, we are not going to include names which begin with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z. This will maintain consistency for official storm naming in the North Atlantic."
Why even bother with that? That is more confusing than anything. I assume this naming is not through the WMO. The U.K. Met Office is doing this. The NHC has the official responsibility designated by the WMO for tropical cyclone naming and the U.K. could name winter storms what they want. East Pacific uses X, Y, and Z. Central Pacific uses U. Q is used in some places too. Using something like the NHC's naming system almost implies some kind of relationship.
Although to be honest this is a lot less crazy than TWC, a corporation. At least a government is not in it for the money. I don't really know the naming criteria though. Hopefully it is not like TWC. If it hits a populated place, then name. Otherwise, maybe not.
"A storm will be named when it is deemed to have the potential to cause 'medium' or 'high' wind impacts on the UK and/or Ireland, i.e. if a yellow, amber or red warning for wind has been issued by Met Éireann and/or the National Severe Weather Warnings (NSWWS)."
Maybe that will apply to any land area, regardless of the amount of people. That will keep it a little more scientific. (for record keeping) |
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U.K. now names winter storms; Newly named Abigail - Chris in Tampa, 11/12/2015, 4:56 am Post A Reply
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