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[Bruce]

The best I can tell is that they are named after a nearby geographic feature.  The “Caldor Fire” was named after the ghost town of Caldor as an example.  The names are nonsensical enough that it is often easier to refer to them as “the fire by x city.”

This is pretty much the standard practice all around the West, though sometimes names get shortened. The Camp Fire that wiped out Paradise started on Camp Creek Road, but two words were dropped and resulted in a name that is ill-fitting.

[GaryV]

I'm guessing that there are far more than A-W worth of wildfires in a given year.

[US 89]

wildfires, floods, heat waves and cold waves [...] behave similarly to hurricanes.

False.

[Poiponen13]

Tornadoes wouldn't be assigned names, but a "Tornado ID". It would be an identifier consisting a ordinal of tornado in that season and an intensity number.

[jeffandnicole]

We should also name ordinary sunny days. 

What's your weather currently?

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17397.msg2866496#msg2866496

[Max Rockatansky]

We should brand cloudy days with unique identifier barcodes.

[Poiponen13]

We should also name ordinary sunny days. 

What's your weather currently?

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17397.msg2866496#msg2866496

Better to limit the naming to severe weather events.

[Max Rockatansky]

We should also name ordinary sunny days. 

What's your weather currently?

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17397.msg2866496#msg2866496

Better to limit the naming to severe weather events.

No, we think this is needed.

[jeffandnicole]

We should also name ordinary sunny days. 

What's your weather currently?

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17397.msg2866496#msg2866496

Better to limit the naming to severe weather events.

People can get severe sun burns on sunny days. 

[Max Rockatansky]

We should also name ordinary sunny days. 

What's your weather currently?

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17397.msg2866496#msg2866496

Better to limit the naming to severe weather events.

People can get severe sun burns on sunny days.

And severe seasonal depression on overcast days.  All these nominal events require categorization. 

[MikeTheActuary]

In the insurance business, for European weather we follow these names: https://www.wetterpate.de/

The Freie Univesität Berlin years ago started, as a fundraising project, the "sponsor a vortex" program.   For a few Euros, you can register a name on the list they use to identify high and low pressure systems.

Naming every low pressure system avoids questions about whether it should just be tropical storms that are named, or should the names be extended to winter storms, derechos, etc.

[Scott5114]

Tornadoes wouldn't be assigned names, but a "Tornado ID". It would be an identifier consisting a ordinal of tornado in that season and an intensity number.

The supercells they are attached to are already assigned a letter-number code that sometimes appears in radar software. This is not generally shared with the general public, however, as they don't really help humans much—mesoscale storms are ever-changing and storms can form, merge, and fall apart over the course of 15 minutes. You definitely couldn't assign individual vortices an identifier, since they can sometimes last less than 30 seconds.

Including the intensity of a tornado in an identifier is not possible. It cannot be known until NWS visits the affected areas and assesses the damage. Sometimes the intensity assessment will change as more data becomes available. And sometimes meteorologists disagree with the official NWS rating—there are people still out there arguing about whether the Joplin tornado was really an EF-5 or if it was just a high-end EF-4, and that tornado happened in 2011.

Hell, sometimes we don't even know whether a tornado is actually on the ground or not since "on the ground" and "50 feet above ground" look pretty much the same on radar. Weak tornadoes often don't have a condensation cone to make them actually visible, and of course, if it's night, you can't see them at all. The only way to know for sure is, again, for someone to go out and look at the damage. And you can't do that when the maybe-tornado is actually going on.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

If they need new female I names to replace Idalia, I can submit Ixeia and Izas. Even though these are actually features in the Pyrenees (a peak and a valley respectively), I've heard those as girl names and thus they should qualify .

[US 89]

Hell, sometimes we don't even know whether a tornado is actually on the ground or not since "on the ground" and "50 feet above ground" look pretty much the same on radar. Weak tornadoes often don't have a condensation cone to make them actually visible, and of course, if it's night, you can't see them at all. The only way to know for sure is, again, for someone to go out and look at the damage. And you can't do that when the maybe-tornado is actually going on.

The advent of dual-polarization radar in the early 2010s means we can now confirm a tornado on the ground from radar alone, since tornado debris has a slightly different reflectivity signature than rain or hail. More specifically, there is a parameter called correlation coefficient (or CC), which basically measures how similar the shapes and sizes of the objects the radar beam is hitting are on a scale from 0 to 1. Raindrops are all pretty similar and will have CC values close to 1. Tornado debris has a much lower CC value. So if you have a small region of low CC co-located with strong rotation in the velocity scans, and you have high reflectivity, that is a tornado debris signature (TDS) and is often used to verify tornado warnings.

Of course, there’s an obvious limitation - if you see a TDS on radar, that means the tornado is already on the ground, and it’s probably been that way for some time since the radar scan and transmission itself takes a few minutes. Weaker tornadoes may not produce enough debris for an easily identifiable TDS especially if they are far from the radar site. But it’s something. An especially strong TDS is also often used to issue enhanced tornado warnings (PDS warnings or sometimes even tornado emergencies) even if there is a lack of spotter reports.

[kphoger]

Here's my plan to improve something I don't really know much about to begin with.  This will be better than what is actually used by people who actually know stuff.

I actually know stuff about this thing.  I live where lots of people know stuff about this thing, and I've also studied it on my own in the past.  Your plan is likely impossible, or at the very least it is improbable, and most certainly it lacks real-world utility, for a variety of reasons.  Here is a detailed, well-thought-out explanation of why your "improvement" sucks—an actual response that your past behavior has not warranted, but I'm feeling gracious today.  Now it's your turn to either ignore me, or else quote my entire post and respond with a tangential one-sentence reply that doesn't really say anything other than what you said the first time.

FTFY

[kphoger]

We should also name ordinary sunny days. 

What's your weather currently?

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17397.msg2866496#msg2866496

Better to limit the naming to severe weather events.

People can get severe sun burns on sunny days.

And severe seasonal depression on overcast days.  All these nominal events require categorization. 

Rain can cause slick driving conditions, which can lead to traffic accidents, which can result in death.

On the way to work this morning, I drove through Rain Shower Blaise Valentin.

[Scott5114]

Hell, sometimes we don't even know whether a tornado is actually on the ground or not since "on the ground" and "50 feet above ground" look pretty much the same on radar. Weak tornadoes often don't have a condensation cone to make them actually visible, and of course, if it's night, you can't see them at all. The only way to know for sure is, again, for someone to go out and look at the damage. And you can't do that when the maybe-tornado is actually going on.

The advent of dual-polarization radar in the early 2010s means we can now confirm a tornado on the ground from radar alone, since tornado debris has a slightly different reflectivity signature than rain or hail. More specifically, there is a parameter called correlation coefficient (or CC), which basically measures how similar the shapes and sizes of the objects the radar beam is hitting are on a scale from 0 to 1. Raindrops are all pretty similar and will have CC values close to 1. Tornado debris has a much lower CC value. So if you have a small region of low CC co-located with strong rotation in the velocity scans, and you have high reflectivity, that is a tornado debris signature (TDS) and is often used to verify tornado warnings.

Of course, there’s an obvious limitation - if you see a TDS on radar, that means the tornado is already on the ground, and it’s probably been that way for some time since the radar scan and transmission itself takes a few minutes. Weaker tornadoes may not produce enough debris for an easily identifiable TDS especially if they are far from the radar site. But it’s something. An especially strong TDS is also often used to issue enhanced tornado warnings (PDS warnings or sometimes even tornado emergencies) even if there is a lack of spotter reports.

That's good to know, thanks! I don't think this tech has filtered its way down to the broadcast stations in OKC yet. Because if it had we would have had David Payne hyperventilating about how great he is because he has access to it.

On the way to work this morning, I drove through Rain Shower Blaise Valentin.

I believe the next two names on the list are Beverly Carneiro and Oliver Edgemoor.

[1]

I believe the next two names on the list are Beverly Carneiro and Oliver Edgemoor.

No, they're Rob Standridge and Mary Hannah.

[kphoger]

I believe the next two names on the list are Beverly Carneiro and Oliver Edgemoor.

You didn't even have to list that second one, and I still would have understood. 

[kphoger]

Aku
Beryl
Chris
Debby
Ernie
Francine
Gustice
Hilpa
Ickit
Joyce
Kirk
Laden
Milton
Nadine
Obat
Patty
Rafael
Sara
Tony
Valerie
William

Alef
Bet
Gimel
Dalet
He
Vav
Zayin
Het
Tet
Yod
Kaf
Lamed
Mem
Nun
Samekh
Ayin
Pe
Tsaid
Qof
Resh
Shin
Tav

Tony Kempster

[US 89]

Hell, sometimes we don't even know whether a tornado is actually on the ground or not since "on the ground" and "50 feet above ground" look pretty much the same on radar. Weak tornadoes often don't have a condensation cone to make them actually visible, and of course, if it's night, you can't see them at all. The only way to know for sure is, again, for someone to go out and look at the damage. And you can't do that when the maybe-tornado is actually going on.

The advent of dual-polarization radar in the early 2010s means we can now confirm a tornado on the ground from radar alone, since tornado debris has a slightly different reflectivity signature than rain or hail. More specifically, there is a parameter called correlation coefficient (or CC), which basically measures how similar the shapes and sizes of the objects the radar beam is hitting are on a scale from 0 to 1. Raindrops are all pretty similar and will have CC values close to 1. Tornado debris has a much lower CC value. So if you have a small region of low CC co-located with strong rotation in the velocity scans, and you have high reflectivity, that is a tornado debris signature (TDS) and is often used to verify tornado warnings.

Of course, there’s an obvious limitation - if you see a TDS on radar, that means the tornado is already on the ground, and it’s probably been that way for some time since the radar scan and transmission itself takes a few minutes. Weaker tornadoes may not produce enough debris for an easily identifiable TDS especially if they are far from the radar site. But it’s something. An especially strong TDS is also often used to issue enhanced tornado warnings (PDS warnings or sometimes even tornado emergencies) even if there is a lack of spotter reports.

That's good to know, thanks! I don't think this tech has filtered its way down to the broadcast stations in OKC yet. Because if it had we would have had David Payne hyperventilating about how great he is because he has access to it.

I would be shocked if any broadcast station especially in the middle of tornado country didn’t have a way to show this. It’s been around for over 10 years now and has become pretty ubiquitous in the meteorology world. I remember a couple years ago we had a tornado scare in Atlanta and WSB was definitely showing it. Weather Channel uses it a bunch too (when they’re actually showing weather and not Highway Through Hell or whatever).

Now, they usually won’t call it correlation coefficient or CC, because those words are apparently too big for the average viewer. So they usually call it “Live 5 Tornado Tracker” or something else that’s similarly dumb.