The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

8 September 2005

Idiot winds

The Atlantic storm season, which runs through the end of November, has already seen sixteen fifteen storms big enough to name; there being only 21 names assigned — there are few names starting with Q and U, and no one ever envisioned getting down to X, Y and Z — the system allows for only five six more.

(Storms #22 and subsequent are designated by Greek letters, so the next storm after Wilma will be called Alpha. Just what we need: an Alpha storm.)

Posted at 7:25 AM to Weather or Not


Sixteen? There's already a "P" storm?

Dang it, where's my scorecard? It's pretty bad when the husband of a National Weather Service employee can't even keep up.

Posted by: McGehee at 8:42 AM on 8 September 2005

[after clicking the link]

Hmmm. Er, Charles, "O" is the 15th letter of the alphabet, not the 16th.

Posted by: McGehee at 8:43 AM on 8 September 2005

Sorry about that. Since so many of these storms are coming out of the Caribbean, an area where Spanish is common, I just naturally counted the "ll" character as the single letter it is.

(You think he bought that? Me either.)

Posted by: CGHill at 10:21 AM on 8 September 2005