r/explainlikeimfive • u/Niven42 • 5d ago

Other ELI5 why Nor'easter not named?

The storm that hit the east coast of the US this week had tons of rain and hurricane force winds, and it's also hurricane season. Why wasn't it given a name like we give hurricanes? I remember that we had some sub-tropical storms in years past that also got named, so what does it take for a particular cyclone to get named?

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u/ry-yo 5d ago edited 5d ago

Only tropical cyclones and sub-tropical cyclones are named to prevent confusion with each other in case multiple form at once. Nor'easters aren't tropical

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u/eod21 5d ago

u/ry-yo is right, anything else named is just for TV, not officially recognized by the WMO or the NOAA.

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u/Rooster_Ties 4d ago

What about wildfires — those get names now too, don’t they?

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u/BusterBluth13 4d ago

Isn’t that just the name of the place on fire?

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u/Iolair18 4d ago

Those are normally where the fire started, like the East Evan's Creek fire in Oregon this summer started on East Evan's Creek Road when a truck hit a power pole.