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Dumping Nemo: Is Weather Channel's Blizzard Branding Just Nomenclatural Tryanny?
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 8, 2013
Modified Feb 8, 2013
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By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 8, 2013
Modified Feb 8, 2013
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A bitter debate is raging in some circles over the Weather Channel's wildly successful campaign to name winter storms. When the Georgia-based network first announced its intention to name storms last fall, many meteorologists objected to the scheme, with NBC's Andrew Freiden wondering who died and made TWC corporate king of christening weather. As WJLA-TV’s Bob Ryan pointed out, "there was NO coordination of this decision to name winter storms with the National Weather Service or any of the professional groups such as the Weather Coalition, groups within the AMS or NWA."
Yep, the Weather Channel just went ahead and did it, like Colonel Kurtz ordering the assassination of Vietnamese double agents and amassing a Montagnard army of stupidly-named soldiers. And it fucking worked. Everyone from Mayor Bloomberg to, uh, local website Gothamist.com has been calling our current Nor'Easter "Nemo"... exactly as the Weather Channel Overlords expected. In an email, DCist's Benjamin Freed shakes his fist for many of us:
From a news perspective, this is particularly troubling. Hurricane and tropical storm names are issued by the National Weather Service and can thus be used universally without any editorial hesitation. Katrina is always Katrina, Sandy is always Sandy, and so forth. But when The Weather Channel takes it upon itself to "name" winter storms, it is doing nothing more than cashing in on that naming convention for its own purposes, and any other news organization that uses them without attributing it to The Weather Channel is simply doing free publicity for a marketing stunt. Until storm names become official record, it's just a cheap ploy for TV ratings.
And Dr. Joel N. Myers, AccuWeather Founder and President, has this to say:
In unilaterally deciding to name winter storms, The Weather Channel has confused media spin with science and public safety. We have explored this issue for 20 years and have found that this is not good science and will mislead the public. Winter storms are very different from hurricanes.
Hurricanes are well-defined storms following a path that can be tracked. Winter storms are often erratic, affecting different areas unevenly. Their centers may not be well-defined. There may be multiple centers and they often shift. One area may get a blizzard, while places not too far away may experience rain or fog, or nothing at all. Naming a winter storm that may deliver such varied weather will create more confusion in the public and the emergency management community.
The names, which are assigned in alphabetical order, include such gems as Orko, Q, Gandolf and Freyer—which, as Gothamist commenter "Robert Moses Supposes Erroneously" astutely points out, "were apparently picked out by an 8th grade D&D team." In an interview with the Times, Bryan Norcross, the channel meteorologist who helped conceive the storm-naming last year, explains that "Nemo is a Latin word" meaning "no one” or “no man.” He insists that “Finding Nemo" was not the inspiration for the name. Yeah, and Apocalypse Now totally wasn't inspired by Heart of Darkness.
Tagged
Blizzard
nemo
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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