oh Dear TS Alpha

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

 

[paulh]

looks like this will give us bad weather over here more than florida looking at its track
Paulh

 

[disneyholic family]

this one might possibly be a problem for the Disney Cruise Lines...
what a stupid name, Alpha.....not that wilma was a brilliant one...
instead of alpha, they could have had xenon or something fun like that if they didn't discriminate against X,Y and Z names (my sister has a y name....they could have used hers for Y....she's pretty hurricane like...)

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

what a stupid name, Alpha.....not that wilma was a brilliant one...
instead of alpha, they could have had xenon or something fun like that if they didn't discriminate against X,Y and Z names (my sister has a y name....they could have used hers for Y....she's pretty hurricane like...)

Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center and now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. lists featured only women's names until 1979, when men's and women's names were alternated. Six lists are used in rotation. Thus, the 2004 list will be used again in 2010.

In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on.

...seems quite sensible to me and not "stupid" at all.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

The concern is that these two storms will join around Wednesday and dump a hell of a lot of snow in New England.
We will then get the remnants later on this week

 

[disneyholic family]

Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center and now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. lists featured only women's names until 1979, when men's and women's names were alternated. Six lists are used in rotation. Thus, the 2004 list will be used again in 2010.

In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on.

...seems quite sensible to me and not "stupid" at all.

they don't use X, Y, Z, Q and i can't remember the 5th letter. There are lots of Y and Z names they could use (not so many X's, but enough for 6 lists)...

and i believe they retire names associated with killer storms (so they have to change the names on the repeating lists)

and yes i do think many of the names they come up with are stupid sounding...wilma for example...
having grown up in tornado alley, i prefer my storms unnamed.....we remember the killer ones regardless...

by the way, i remember well the fight to get men's names included in the list....i was in graduate school at the time.....it was one of the feminist fights of the 70's......a great feminist legacy - we can call a storm Dennis or Ivan..

 

[disneyholic family]

The concern is that these two storms will join around Wednesday and dump a hell of a lot of snow in New England.
We will then get the remnants later on this week

every child's nightmare....snow on halloween.....i remember it well...having to wear a coat over my cool costume to go out trick or treating....how distressing...

 

[pauldents]

Good news. Alpha appears to be weakening and wont be causing any significant problems.

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

they don't use X, Y, Z, Q and i can't remember the 5th letter. There are lots of Y and Z names they could use (not so many X's, but enough for 6 lists)...

and i believe they retire names associated with killer storms (so they have to change the names on the repeating lists)

and yes i do think many of the names they come up with are stupid sounding...wilma for example...
having grown up in tornado alley, i prefer my storms unnamed.....we remember the killer ones regardless...

by the way, i remember well the fight to get men's names included in the list....i was in graduate school at the time.....it was one of the feminist fights of the 70's......a great feminist legacy - we can call a storm Dennis or Ivan..

U is the 5th letter.

Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.

The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO committee (called primarily to discuss many other issues) the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it.

Maybe you could join the organisation so that you can have an influence on removing the "stupid" names.......then again my great aunt Wilma never thought her name sounded stupid at all.

 

[Laurafoster]

And xenon is far more intelligent than wilma is it?

Fair enough there may be 6 names beginning with these letters but the problem would then be if one of the names needs to be retired for whatever reason i would imagine that it would be damn hard to find a replacement!!

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

And xenon is far more intelligent than wilma is it?

Fair enough there may be 6 names beginning with these letters but the problem would then be if one of the names needs to be retired for whatever reason i would imagine that it would be damn hard to find a replacement!!

...and of course, who would be able to differentiate between Xenon and Zenon?

 

[Laurafoster]

Good point!!!