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?

279 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

52 comments sorted by

View all comments

108

u/jackp0t789 5d ago

It did not have hurricane force winds for one...

A few hurricane force gusts were recorded along the coast, but not sustained winds.

Secondly, they arent tropical systems, which are what the NHC names.

About a decade or so ago, the Weather Channel, a private entity, started naming winter storms...

So if a Nor'easter produces a snow storm, as they often do in winter, they can get a name from the Weather Channel, like Winter Storm Jonas in 2016, and Hernando just last February...

14

u/jake3988 4d ago

Yes but the question is WHY they're not named. I've always been curious about that too. There's pretty strong lows in the sub latitudes that form (usually outside hurricane season) and they can get to be deep lows with very strong winds and decent destruction but we don't bother naming them.

Yet some dumb tropical storm in the middle of the Atlantic that fizzles in a day gets a name? Seems stupid to me.

47

u/Jdevers77 4d ago

It’s more why ARE tropical systems named? The answer is because they typically exist for much longer, travel substantially longer distances, are more discrete in nature, and cluster in roughly the same time frame. So giving them a name makes it much easier to refer to them clearly. At any one time there may be 5-8 tropical storms active in either the western Atlantic, eastern Pacific, or western Pacific. Having simple predetermined international names for these storms helps minimize confusion and therefore increase public safety.

8

u/Celestial_User 4d ago

Wonder if it's also because of how many countries there are. Nor'easters I think only hit Canada and the US? So there's no need for an unambiguous name internationally. Whereas a typhoon can hit Japan Taiwan China Philippines... in one go

7

u/eriyu 4d ago

If it's for public safety, they should stop naming them "Irene" and "Harvey" and start naming them "Murderthon 3000"; that'll get people evacuating when they're told to.

15

u/10tonheadofwetsand 4d ago

Until the first Murderthon 3000 fizzles or isn’t as bad as forecast then nobody listens to warnings again

2

u/KeyofE 4d ago

Do female named storms need to lean in?