As they do every year since realizing how marketable it is to give names to catastrophic storms, The Weather Channel has released their list of Winter Storm Names for the 2015-2016 season, and this year it includes quite possibly the DUMBEST NAME IN THE HISTORY OF NATURAL DISASTERS. The way the storm name cycle works is they choose one name for every letter of the alphabet, and if they cycle through the alphabet (which never happens) they start over again by pulling some new names.
According to the Washington Post, this year’s list was chosen in collaboration between The Weather Channel and the Bozeman High School’s Latin Club from Bozeman, Montana. Which actually makes perfect sense when you read how fucking stupid some of these names are. Here’s the list…
Winter Storm Names: 2015-2016, A through Z
What really kills me about this is not the fact that The Weather Channel1 has made the naming of winter storms so commercial that just the release of the list is news, but the fact that they’re not smart enough to take me up on my idea.
@weatherchannel quit releasing names of storms and start getting companies to pay big $$$$ to sponsor those storms. You've already sold out.
— Cass Anderson (@casspa) October 14, 2015
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Ever since the jabronis at TWC started naming winter storms (which was a ridiculous tactic to begin with), I’ve said that they should seek out corporations to sponsor those storms so that money spent on the name of those storms could at least be recirculated into a disaster relief fund. Because if The Weather Channel’s going to continue to profit off the name of these storms they should at least funnel some of that money into that areas that get destroyed (and which TWC profits off the coverage of).
Anyways, Twitter reactions to ‘Winter Storm YOLO’ are about what you’d expect from something so ridiculous, and Syracuse.com has an amazing round up of everyone’s Twitter reactions for you to check out here.