Tropical Storm Alpha Sets Naming Record 344
vekron writes "Tropical Storm Alpha formed Saturday in the Caribbean, setting the record for the most named storms in an Atlantic hurricane season. This is the first time the U.S National Hurricane Center has resorted to using the Greek alphabet since it began naming tropical cyclones in 1953. The previous record of 21 named storms had stood since 1933. Alpha was the 22nd to reach tropical storm strength this year, and the season doesn't end until November 30. At 8 p.m. EDT, Alpha was 70 miles south of Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. Tropical storm warnings have been posted for the entire coastline of the Dominican Republic and Haiti and for the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The storm is moving northwest at about 15 mph with winds at the center of 40 mph and is expected to make landfall late Saturday or early Sunday. The National Hurricane Center is tracking this storm; it is offering updates about its development as an RSS feed."
Don't feed the Zonk. (Score:5, Funny)
It's just because they're unimaginative. (Score:5, Funny)
H.
Re:When they said "use Greek letters"... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:It's just because they're unimaginative. (Score:2, Funny)
Lucky we didn't waste $ on greenhouse reduction... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A bit off-topic (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can you just stop and think for a minute? (Score:5, Funny)
Like all forms of suffering, you can just play the "Mysterious Ways" trump card, and be instantly absolved of explaining why a being that is supposedly omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent permits suffering to happen.
The obvious logical explanation is that either there is no such being ; either it is absent or a supernatural sentience does exist, but lacks at least one of those three qualities (i.e. it doesn't know, can't do anything about it or doesn't care).
Of course, logical arguments are usually countered with the "La-la-la, I'm not listening." move or the "Repeat my viewpoint over and over again in lieu of actually providing a chain of logic" tactic.
You could proabably make a trading card game based on this ... "Atheists vs <insert most culturally appropriate religion here>". Heck, you could have different sets of booster packs for each religion. I hereby patent this idea!
"Theology : The Blathering"
Hurricane beta (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A bit off-topic (Score:3, Funny)
The millions of us named Andrew have trouble sleeping every night.
Re:It's just because they're unimaginative. (Score:4, Funny)
Especially if someone a the EFF decides to buy a nasty hurricane and hve it called "Software Patents" or something... "We're reporting live from Podunk, Texas, where fifty people were killed by Software Patents".
Re:Naming system needs to be changed (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I'm just glad that you can come here to 66.35.250.151 and post your comments! I mean, the 66.35.250.151 crowd will definitely know where you're coming from. I was about to wish you'd mentioned a couple of other web sites in your discussion of the non-naming of Japanese storms, but it's just as well, since we wouldn't want those sites to get 66.35.250.151'ed.
Recent records (Score:4, Funny)
Just wait until Corporate America hears about this (Score:5, Funny)
Hurricane Pepsi has strengthened to a "category 5 delicous" and is expected to be refreshing residents of the Florida coast by early Tuesday morning.
Re:A bit off-topic (Score:2, Funny)
They scream when they're coming and take your house when they leave.
Re:When they said "use Greek letters"... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's just because they're unimaginative. (Score:2, Funny)
You don't want that. MS can afford to buy a lot more names:
"We're reporting live from Podunk, Texas, where fifty people were killed by Open Source Software".
"Thousands left homeless by The GPL"
Re:Frequency vs. severity (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder how GWB's stance on emissions would be affected if a storm were to dismantle his ranch in Crawford?
The "Axis of Evil" would become Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Mother Nature. (Mother Nature would come after North Korea because that's the order in which he would actually do anything about them.)
Re:A bit off-topic (Score:3, Funny)
"Why are storm names female?"
Back in the day when hurricanes really were given exclusively female names, the common answer was because there's so such thing as a HIMicane.
Re:Signs? (Score:1, Funny)
I've got this nagging leprosy thing he could help with. After that, if he's really such a nice guy, maybe he'll clean my gutters.