All About Extreme Weather

13 THINGS

- Caitlin Stall-Paquet

1 WHAT'S IN a name? Plenty, when meteorologists assign them to hurricanes and typhoons. It's a practice that began in the 19th century, when a British meteorologist living in Australia started naming storms after politicians he disliked, as well as Polynesian women. Using female names caught on with American meteorologists in the 1950s; weather reports included sexist cliches about 'temperamental' storms 'flirting' with coastlines. Male names were finally included by 1979.

2 THE association with destruction tends to make some storm names unpopular baby names, which is what happened to Katrina after a Category 5 storm with that name devastated the US state of Louisiana in 2005. A very damaging storm may have its name retired, and some years there are enough storms to run through the 21 alphabetical names (Q, U, X, Y and Z are not used). The World Meteorological Organization keeps a list of backup names prepared for that eventuality.

3 FROM COWS lying down when rain is on the horizon to birds that fly lower prior to a storm, there are plenty of theories that animals can predict the weather. One that's proven is that coastal sharks swim deeper during the drop in barometric pressure that precedes tropical storms. Sometimes animals are the weather: Waterspouts or tornadoes can pick up critters and carry them long distances, leading to accounts of frogs or fish falling from the sky, like the anchovies that rained down on San Francisco in 2022.