User:Jason Rees/History of weather system naming

The practice of using names to identify weather systems goes back several centuries, with storms named after places, saints or things they hit before the formal naming schemes were introduced. Examples of such names are the 1911 Ship Cyclone, the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane and the 1938 New England hurricane. The system currently in place provides identification of tropical cyclones in a brief form that is easily understood and recognized by the public. The credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge, who named tropical cyclones and anticyclones between 1887 and 1907. This system of naming fell into disuse for several years after Wragge retired, until it was revived in the latter part of World War II for tropical cyclones in the Pacific Ocean. Over the following decades formal naming schemes were introduced for several tropical cyclone basins, including the North and South Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Western and Southern Pacific basins as well as the Australian region and Indian Ocean.

Formal start of naming
The practice of using names to identify weather systems goes back several centuries, with systems named after places, saints or things they hit before the formal start of naming in each basin. Examples include the 1526 San Francisco hurricane, the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane and the 1938 New England hurricane. Credit for the first usage of personal names for weather is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge, who named named tropical cyclones and anticyclones between 1887–1907. Wragge used names drawn from the letters of the Greek alphabet, Greek and Roman mythology and female names, to describe weather systems over Australia, New Zealand and the Antarctic. After the new Australian government had failed to create a federal weather bureau and appoint him director, Wragge started naming cyclones after political figures. This system of naming weather systems subsequently fell into disuse for several years after Wragge retired, until it was revived in the latter part of the Second World War.

Despite falling into disuse the naming scheme was occasionally mentioned in the press, with an editorial published in the Launceston Examiner newspaper on October 5, 1935 that called for the return of the naming scheme. Wragge's naming was also mentioned within Sir Napier Shaw’s “Manual of Meteorology” which likened it to a "child naming waves". After reading about Clement Wragge, George Stewart was inspired to write a novel, "Storm", about a storm affecting California which was named Maria. The book was widely read after it was published in 1941 by Random House, especially by United States Army Air Corps and United States Navy (USN) meteorologists during World War II. During 1944, United States Army Air Forces forecasters (USAAF) at the newly established Saipan weather center, started to informally name typhoons after their wives and girlfriends. This practise became popular amongst meteorologists from the United States Airforce and Navy who found that it reduced confusion during map discussions, and in 1945 the United States Armed Services publicly adopted a list of women's names for typhoons of the Pacific.

Germany
The oldest naming system in Europe was developed by the Free University of Berlin, during 1954 Karla Wege, a student at the university's meteorological institute, suggested that names should be assigned to all areas of low and high pressure that influenced the weather of Central Europe. The university subsequently started to name every area of high or low pressure within its weather forecasts, from a list of 260 male and 260 female names submitted by its students. The female names were assigned to areas of low pressure while male names were assigned to areas of high pressure. The names were subsequently exclusively used by Berlin's media until February 1990, after which the German media started to commonly use the names, however, they were not officially approved by the German Meteorological Service Deutscher Wetterdienst. The DWD subsequently banned the usage of the names by their offices during July 1991, after complaints had poured in about the naming system. However, the order was leaked to the German press agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, who ran it as its lead weather story. Germany's ZDF television channel subsequently ran a phone in poll on 17 July 1991 and claimed that 72% of the 40,000 responses favoured keeping the names. This made the DWD pause and think about the naming system and these days the DWD accept the naming system and request that it is maintained. During 1998 a debate started about if it was discrimination to name areas of high pressure with male names and the areas of low pressure with female names. The issue was subsequently resolved by alternating male and female names each year. In November 2002 the "Adopt-a-Vortex" scheme was started, which allowed members of the public or companies to buy naming rights for a letter chosen by the buyer, that are then assigned alphabetically to high and low pressure areas in Europe during each year.

Sweden
In Sweden the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute has no history of naming storms affecting the country, with severe events becoming named after the event, for example the "Oland Storm 1985", "All Saints Hurricane 1969", "The Christmas storm 1902" and "blizzard Tuesday 1850". Following the naming of extreme weather events by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute since the mid-nineties the Swedish media has often used the Norwegian names, such as for Gudrun in 2005. Since the Danish Meteorological Institute began naming storms in 2013, SMHI have reached an agreement to use the Danish or Norwegian name if issued first, and to name storms unnamed by either institute affecting Sweden using the calendar Swedish name day of the storm's impact.

Finland
The Finnish Meteorological Institute names severe weather which affects Finland (which includes severe convective storms in summer and winter wind storms), according to the Finnish name day on which the storm impacts the country. The Swedish-speaking population of Finland often use the Norwegian or Swedish names for storms, but such usage has been discouraged by a Finnish-Swedish expert consulted by broadcaster Yle, who recommends the use of the Finnish names to avoid confusion.

Storm naming in Europe
During September 2013, the Danish media used 3 different names that had originated in Britain, Germany and Sweden to describe the St. Jude storm. As a result, this created confusion within Denmark as the public thought that three seperate depressions, were impacting the country rather than a single system. During the systems aftermath, the then minister responsible for the Danish Meteorological Institute Martin Lidegaard, named the system Allan and ordered the DMI to name storms affecting Denmark in the future. During the course of that winter, it became clear that not having a single naming system for significant weather in Europe, was causing confusion as the media used names from different schemes to describe the same storms. As a result, a task force of the Working Group for the Cooperation between European Forecasters (WGCEF) started to develop a unified naming scheme for storms causing significant weather in Europe. The main objective of this project was to develop a project that would be operated by all of the European national meteorological services and used by the media as well as other agencies such as civil protection.

As a part of this project, the United Kingdom's Met Office and Ireland's Met Éireann announced a 2-year pilot project during September 2015, to name weather systems that were expected to impact either the UK or Ireland. In order to decide which names were going to be used, members of the public were invited to submit names to the forecasters via social media, which was welcomed with enthusiasm as thousands of names were suggested, before they were reviewed by both centres. The first list of names was compiled and issued during October 2015, with any names appearing on the List of retired Atlantic hurricane names or starting with the letters Q, U, X, Y, Z omitted. It was also decided that any post-tropical cyclones that impacted Europe would retain its name and be referred to as "ex-hurricane". Over the next few months, a total of eleven storms were assigned a name whenever a yellow, amber or red warning for wind was issued by either agency. The project also helped Met Éireann communicate the impacts of several systems, which impacted Ireland in quick succession over the 2015-16 Christmas and New Year period. After the season, it was determined that the project was a success, as the names had been adopted and accepted by the public, the media and emergency responders. As a result, it was decided to expand the naming scheme to include other weather types such as rain and snow, if its impact could lead to significant flooding as advised by their partner agencies.

During 2017, encouraged by the success of the UKMO and Met Éireann naming scheme, the meteorological services of France, Portugal and Spain, decided to set up their own naming scheme. The naming scheme was discussed throughout the year by email, before it was finalised in various web-conferences during the Autumn. It was decided that a system within the Atlantic Ocean or western Mediterranean Sea would be named if it was expected to cause an orange or red wind warning in either France, Spain or Portugal. It was also decided that a named storm would keep the same name its whole life, including when it moved into the area covered by the UKMO and Met Éireann naming scheme or hadbee.

and that the meteorological service who issued the first orange or red warning would name the storm and inform the other meteorological services.• A named Storm keeps the same name its wholelife.

A test of the system was performed during November, before it became operational on December 1, for the winter season of 2017-2018. During the season, a total of nine storms were named

The storm naming system by the South-west Groupwas quite successful in raising the awareness of citi-zens about meteorological hazards related to stormsand encouraging people to follow the recommenda-tions of the authorities.Coordination between NMSs of both naming groupsinvolved in storm naming was quite good, but it isimportant to work on a more efficient system, thatdoes not rely on exchanging e-mails.The existence of a pre-defined list of names known bythe media and the public allows the public to guesswhich low is going to be named next but may produce‘fake news’, for instance, when some private compa-nies try to pre-empt the naming of a storm before theNMS does so. At the same time there is additionalcomplexity for the public in understanding whetherthe named low will affect their country or not. Thesolution may be in making use of graphical and texttools and through the use of common communicatingsystems (eg. websites, social media) to reach thepublic in the most efficient way.Further work and coordination are necessary beforereaching a single naming system in Europe.

Since the storms Lothar and Martin of 1999, the French weather service Météo-France have adopted the Free University of Berlin naming conventions.

Starting in 2017 France, Spain and Portugal will cooperate on naming storms which affect their territories. Based within the framework of EUMETNET.

NWS Buffalo
From the winter of 1998-99 until 2012-13, the United States National Weather Service Forecast Office in Buffalo, New York unofficially named lake effect storms after the event, using various themes including insects, heavenly bodies, famous scientists, minerals and cows.

WFSB Channel 3, Connecticut
During the winter of 1971-72, Meteorologist Ken Garee of the Travelers Weather Service in Hartford, Connecticut started to name winter storms, in order to help educate the WTIC television and radio audiences about the rapid movement of winter storms. Over the years, the naming scheme continued by the staff of WSFB Channel 3 with a variety of different themes used to name the systems including the top baby names of 1957, the children of Channel 3 and Connecticut Towns that could be someones first name. These days systems are named if they are forecast to produce over 6 in of snow over the majority of the state and/or at least 1/2 the amount of ice accretion, an average ice storm would produce over the area. WFSB has found that their naming of winter storms has had a mixed reaction over the years with some viewers criticizing it, however, the majority of their viewers found it fun and loved the tradition.

WLUK Fox 11, Wisconsin
During the late 1980's, WLUK-TV meteorologist John Chandik started to name winter storms alphabetically, after communities in the station's viewing area in northeastern Wisconsin. Over the next few years, the naming scheme continued with a fresh list of names developed internally every year and started to use people names for the winter storms, as it didn't make sense to name a system Florence, if the majority of the snow was in Appleton or Oshkosh. These days systems are most commonly named if they are forecast to produce over 5 in of snow over WLUK Fox 11's viewing area or if a major ice storm occurs which has the potential for power outages and making driving hazardous. WLUK has found that their naming of winter storms has had a mixed reaction over the years, with some communities taking it as a source of pride and fun, while other viewers didn't like the naming scheme.

The Weather Channel
During Halloween 2011, a nor'easter impacted the northeastern United States and was nicknamed "Snowtober" by various media outlets and on social media, which prompted The Weather Channel (TWC) to put the nickname on air where it took off. As a result, the commercial weather service started to informally investigate naming winter storms and realised that Twitter needed a hashtag for every system so that information could be filtered. During October 2012, TWC announced that 3 of their senior meteorologists would start proactively naming noteworthy winter storms, using names from a predetermined list of 26 Roman and Greek names. TWC argued that the naming scheme would raise awareness, make communications and information sharing easier, which in turn would make it easier for people to understand forecasts, lead to better planning, preparedness and result in less impact overall. The initial reaction to TWC's naming scheme was mixed as most people did not have a problem with it, while others were not happy that TWC had not consulted the rest of the meteorological community on the initiative and called it self-serving and not in the interest of effective weather communication. After considering TWC's press release and various other factors, the founder and president of the commercial weather service Accuweather, Dr. Joel N. Myers, suggested that TWC had "confused media spin with science and public safety." He also stated that Accuweather had explored the issue for 20 years and had concluded that it "was not good science" and would "mislead the public" and noted that "winter storms were very different from hurricanes". At the time the NWS made no comment about the naming system but noted that they did not name winter storms.

After TWC named its first system in November 2012, the NWS Eastern Region headquarters reminded its forecast offices that it didn't name Winter Storms, however, the NWS Weather Forecast Office in Buffalo, New York unofficially named six systems after the fact during the winter of 2012-13. After reading a headline entitled "Brutus expected to bury Bozeman" students at the Bozeman High School in Montana reached out to TWC and provided them with four years worth of classical Latin and Greek names as they wanted to raise awareness of the language. During the season, TWC did not use any quantitative method to name the systems and started to use the names provided by the Bozeman high school after it had exhausted the list of names that it had preselected. After the season had ended, TWC reviewed the systems it had assigned a name to and felt that 90% of the systems deserved to be named, based on the impacts they had on a regional/national basis. They also determined that the project had been a success after over a billion impressions were recorded on Twitter and numerous schools, agencies and media outlets had started to use it. As a result, they decided to use the named storms of 2012-13 as a benchmark and developed a quantitative method for deciding when to name future storms, which they entitled the Integrated Meteorological Population and Area Calculation Tool (IMPACT). This tool allowed TWC to calculate the population and area that is forecast to be impacted by a winter storm, based on thresholds set by the NWS for winter weather warnings and advisories.

As a result, they decided that they would name a storm during the 2013-14 season if it was forecast to impact over 10 million people or 1000000 km2, however, it was noted that the storm naming committee could override the guidance in certain circumstances. Over the next few years, TWC continued to develop the science behind their naming scheme and collaborated with the Latin class at Bozeman High School to release a new set of 26 names each year. Ahead of the winter of 2015-16, the United Kingdom's Met Office and the Irish Met Éireann announced that they would start naming winter storms, in order to take control and inject authority into a messy situation where the media was using a variety of names for weather events.

Current practises
In 2013 following the in Denmark where media in the country used the British, German and Swedish names of the storm causing some confusion to the public. as The DMI selected the name Allan in conjunction with the readers of Ekstra Bladet to retroactively name the St. Jude storm, since which DMI alternate between male and female names alphabetically. The names are only revealed when the threshold for naming has been exceeded, which is that a storm warning is issued within Danish territory. Names are chosen on the criteria of being a "Danish name", which is found with a certain frequency within Denmark.

Poland appears to translate the names used by the Free University of Berlin into Polish equivalent names (Xaver 2013 and Xavier 2017 to Ksawery, and Herwart 2017 to Grzegorz) in warnings for severe storms which affect their territory.

1960–1990s
In January 1960, a formal naming scheme was introduced for the South-West Indian Ocean by the Mauritius and Madagascan Weather Services. with the first cyclone being named Alix. Later that year, as meteorology entered a new era with the launching of the world's first meteorological satellite TIROS-1, eight lists of tropical cyclone names were prepared for use in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins. In the Atlantic it was decided to rotate these lists every four years, while in the Eastern Pacific the names were designed to be used consecutively before being repeated. During December 1962, New Caledonia proposed to the third session of the World Meteorological Organisation's Regional Association V, that tropical cyclones in the region should be named using female names. Other members of the association considered using masculine Christian names to the south of the Equator, in order to avoid any confusion with the names used in the Northern Hemisphere. Ultimately the association decided that there was no need for a naming scheme to be introduced to the south of the Equator. However, it had no objections to members naming systems on a national basis provided that the same names were not allocated in neighbouring regions, to different cyclones. During the following year, the Philippine Weather Bureau (later reorganized into PAGASA in 1972) adopted four sets of female Filipino nicknames ending in "ng" from A to Y for use in its self-defined area of responsibility. Following the international practise of naming tropical cyclones, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology decided at a conference in October 1963 that they would start naming tropical cyclones after women at the start of the 1963–64 cyclone season. The first Western Australian cyclone was subsequently named Bessie on January 6, 1964. In 1965, after two of the Eastern Pacific lists of names had been used, it was decided to start recycling the sets of names on an annual basis like in the Atlantic.

At its 1969 national conference, the National Organization for Women passed a motion that called for the National Hurricane Center (NHC) not to name tropical cyclones using only female names. Later that year, during the 1969–70 cyclone season, the New Zealand Meteorological Service (NZMS) office in Fiji started to name tropical cyclones that developed within the South Pacific basin, with the first named Alice on January 4, 1970. Within the Atlantic basin the four lists of names were used until 1971, when the newly established United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration decided to inaugurate a ten-year list of names for the basin. Roxcy Bolton subsequently petitioned the 1971, 1972 and 1973 interdepartmental hurricane conferences to stop the female naming; however, the National Hurricane Center responded by stating that there was a 20:1 positive response to the usage of female names. In February 1975, the NZMS decided to incorporate male names into the naming lists for the South Pacific, from the following season after a request from the Fiji National Council of Women who considered the practice discriminatory. At around the same time the Australian Science Minister ordered that tropical cyclones within the Australian region should carry both men's and women's names, as the minister thought "that both sexes should bear the odium of the devastation caused by cyclones." Male names were subsequently added to the lists for the Southern Pacific and each of the three Australian tropical cyclone warning centres ahead of the 1975–76 season.

During 1977 the World Meteorological Organization decided to form a hurricane committee, which held its first meeting during May 1978 and took control of the Atlantic hurricane naming lists. During 1978 the Secretary of Commerce Juanita Kreps ordered NOAA administrator Robert White to cease the sole usage of female names for hurricanes. Robert White subsequently passed the order on to the Director of NHC Neil Frank, who attended the first meeting of the hurricane committee and requested that both men’s and women’s names be used for the Atlantic. The committee subsequently decided to accept the proposal and adopted five new lists of male and female names to be used the following year. The lists also contained several Spanish and French names, so that they could reflect the cultures and languages used within the Atlantic Ocean. After an agreement was reached between Mexico and the United States, six new sets of male/female names were implemented for the Eastern Pacific basin during 1978. A new list was also drawn up during the year for the Western Pacific and was implemented after Typhoon Bess and the 1979 tropical cyclone conference.