The Weather Channel decides to name winter's worst storms - without working with the NWS or ... anyone else. My view: It's unnecessary, unwanted and may confuse folks.
The Weather Channel made a rather bold and, dare I say, unusual announcement on Tuesday. Beginning this winter, they're going to name winter's worst storms ... yeah, just as tropical systems are named, the biggest and baddest storms of the winter will now get named, too.
You read that correctly. I'm not making this up.
I see only three problems with this: One, it's not necessary. This is purely The Weather Channel trying to drum up ... something. What they're going to drum up aside from ridicule, I don't know.
Two, it's not like anyone's been begging for this. Have you heard anyone asking for this? "You know, we ought to name winter storms!" Or, "Hey, that storm is so bad, I wanna name it Khan!"
No, you haven't, and, to my knowledge, no one in an official position in this country has, either. I don't think anyone else (outside of TWC's headquarters) has, anyway.
And lastly, it's entirely possible - likely, even - that such a move will only confuse people, many of whom - and this may come as a shock to folks at TWC - don't normally turn to TWC for the most up-to-date weather info, but instead rely on local sources, which I personally think is a better idea.
What TWC's folks should have done was sit down with the National Weather Service and a group of local meteorologists and decided if this was something worth doing. It wouldn't have taken five minutes for the experts to explain that it's not.
Besides, if we get a whopper of a snowstorm around here this year, I'll probably just call it "Snowmageddon" anyway ...
What do you think? Leave me a comment below or drop a note on my Facebook page.
To see the entire list of The Weather Channel's 26 alphabetical winter storm names, click past the jump.
