Do you ever find yourself looking into random subjects for no good reason? It’s been happening to me a lot these last few days. As the topic of hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, and other less glamorous tropical storms came up as we were planning a warm weather getaway, and I started wondering… How exactly do the naming schemes work? That turns out to be a somewhat complicated process involving various different agencies around the world and their rotating list of names. But along the way, I discovered this interesting tidbit, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The practice of giving storms people’s names was introduced by Clement Lindley Wragge, an Anglo-Australian meteorologist at the end of the 19th century. He used female names, the names of politicians who had offended him, and names from history and mythology.

Gordon Dunn and Banner Miller’s 1960 book, Atlantic Hurricanes further enlightens us that

By properly naming a hurricane, the weatherman could publicly describe a politician (who perhaps was not too generous with weather-bureau appropriations) as “causing great distress” or “wandering aimlessly about the Pacific.”

Am I the only person who thinks that this practice is hilarious and should be brought back?

In the meanwhile, I’ve taken it upon myself to discover that there was, once upon a time, a Tropical Storm Amy. Apparently, Amy wasn’t intense and destructive enough to become a full on hurricane, but it could have been worse. As a friend jokes, it could have been “light drizzle Amy.”