FTVLive

View Original

Is There anything more Stupid than Naming a Storm After A Clown Fish?

It's one thing for the Weather Channel to all the sudden start naming Winter Storms. It's a complete other thing to come up with the stupidest name ever.

FTVLive talked to one of our weather buddies last week, he lives in the New York area. At the time we talked to him, he wasn't sure if the storm was going to 5 inches or 4 feet, be he was quite adamant about one thing.

He wasn't ever, ever going to call the storm "Nemo!'

Last Fall, The Weather Channel announced that they were going to start naming Winter Storms, just like the Hurricane Center names Tropical storms in the Summer time.

It seems that most everyone thought it was a dumb idea, but that didn't stop the Weather Channel from going ahead with their plan. "This is more of a PR stunt by the Weather Channel. It's not something the government is running with," said Thomas Downs, a meteorologist with Weather 2000.

Weather folks outside the Weather Channel also thought it was a stupid idea. "A named storm should be a hurricane, and only a hurricane" said George Wright, a meteorologist and the founder of Wright Weather Consulting in New York. "A hurricane is something that's more unusual and devastating. If you start naming other storms, people will suddenly think this might be a hurricane."

Word is that the weather people at the NBC O&O's have been told to use the Weather Channel's names when referring to storms. NBC owns the Weather Channel and they want everyone on the same page. 

Weather folks at non NBC station are a lot less inclined to go along with the name game.

One NBC O&O Weather Anchor tells FTVLive "I have used their names a few times, but I really try and stay away from it."

"True Meteorologists will never use the Weather Channel's names." said our New York Pal.

Whatever you call the storm that hit the Northeast this Weekend, it was powerful and impacted a lot of people. And you you lived in the area, you had no trouble...Finding Nemo (you didn't really think we could write this entire story without saying that...did ya?)