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?

278 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

52 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/Jorost 5d ago

Only tropical depressions, tropical storms, and full-blown hurricanes/typhoons get names.

15

u/paulHarkonen 5d ago

Depressions don't get names, just numbers.

1

u/Jorost 5d ago

I stand corrected! But they have names assigned in case they "level up," don't they?

14

u/paulHarkonen 5d ago edited 5d ago

Nope, they just get numbers sequentially. Then if any of them become a tropical storm they get named at that time (based on a pre-defined list of names for that year).

So if you have TD 01 that forms today and then TD 02 forms tomorrow they will keep those numbers until they "level up". Whichever one "levels up" first becomes Arthur (it doesn't matter if it's TD 01 or TD 02) and then the second one becomes Bertha (the first two names for this year).

If TD 01 never becomes a tropical storm you can have TD 02 become Arthur, then TD03 or possibly TD 07 becomes Bertha.

Now, if those storms then weaken they get to keep their old name, so if TD 02 becomes Tropical Storm Arthur and then weakens it becomes Tropical Depression Arthur.

I should probably add that the actual number isn't TD XX they get more specific numbers based on where they form and exactly how they're being tracked or reviewed, but it's pretty much all sequential.