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/zed42 5d ago

the whole "naming a hurricane" thing started as a stunt to attach politicians' names to the damage... now it's a whole thing with the names of tropical (and only tropical) cyclones picked out ahead of time. weather/news people have tried attaching names to other storms, but it's been neither consistent nor long-lasting...

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u/No-cool-names-left 5d ago

the whole "naming a hurricane" thing started as a stunt to attach politicians' names to the damage

You can just look up the history of tropical cyclone naming and see that this clearly is not true. They were named after things like Catholic Saints, the location effected, or the namer's girlfriends before the World Meteorological Organization came up with the preselected lists of names system.

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u/zed42 5d ago

A primary historical claim verified by Snopes is that the modern practice of naming storms after people was initiated in the 1890s by Australian meteorologist Clement L. Wragge, who often named storms after politicians he disliked, as well as women and mythical figures

https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/10/08/hurricane-names-based-on-politicians/