Named Storms: Good for Social Media

I think I remember reading something about this, that the Weather Channel was going to start naming winter storms.

So as we prepare for Winter Storm Brutus, I thought I’d find a little refresher to figure out why the naming is so significant.

But first, this. The first thing that came to mind when Brutus was mentioned:

(Start at 7:34. Big rat wielding the pike is named Brutus. The big meanie.)

Now that nostalgia is out of the way, on to the reasons the Weather Channel is naming storms. I’ll sum up from their explanation here.

• Naming a storm raises awareness.
• Attaching a name makes it much easier to follow a weather system’s progress.
• A storm with a name takes on a personality all its own, which adds to awareness.
•  In today’s social media world, a name makes it much easier to reference in communication.
•  A named storm is easier to remember and refer to in the future.

So, we all know how much I love the word awareness. And they use it twice. And, well, there are two pretty closely aligned reasons here that naming storms will make it real neat for those social media folks.

Yes, social media clicks, folks. That seems to be the big draw. See here:

Yay! What impact will it bring? Well, snow for one. A sharp increase in my overall reluctance to go camping with the Scouts Friday night/Saturday morning way in the hell out in the boonies on a rough bumpy dirt road. Yeah, there is a hot spring-fed swimming pool there, but you know what? It’s still freakin’ winter camping. Maybe the import of having a named storm bearing down on us this weekend will give extra weight to my argument against going. “Sorry, I’d love nothing more than sleeping in a tent on the frozen ground out in the wilderness, but Winter Storm Brutus is coming, and the Weather Channel wouldn’t give it a name if it were just a case of the snowy sniffles, would it?”

Here, by the way, are the winter storms we have to look forward to this season.

I know fans of a certain book series will be looking forward to WS Draco. Lovers of Greek or Roman philosophy will enjoy being snowbound by Euclid, Plato, or Virgil, and everyone in the known universe will be wondering where’s WS Walda? I know. Not quite a perfect fit, but it’s close enough.

And one person in particular is looking forward to WS Khan: