From: arensb@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov (Andrew Arensburger - RMS)
Subject: Re: Problems with hurricane names
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 22:45:23 GMT

thayes@desire.wright.edu writes:
>Hurricanes used to have only female's names.  Then they got in touch with their
>masculine sides.  We'll all be in trouble with the first "Hurricane Butch." Or
>maybe something more fitting yet Biblical, like "Joshua."

	I just couldn't resist reposting this article. Unfortunately,
I've lost the original header (I was just learning the difference between
rn's 'w' and 's'), but the important stuff all seems to be there.

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		What the Texas coast needs is a hurricane named Bubba
				by John Kelso
			[Austin-American Statesman, August 3, 1989]

	How'd the National Weather Service come up with a dipstick name like 
Chantal for a hurricane?  What's gotten into those federal boys, anyhow?
	Why'd they give a Texas storm a name that sounds like something you'd 
find for sale at the Scarboroughs perfume counter for $120 an ounce?
	I figure the government ought to name the hurricanes after rednecks, 
especially if they're fixing to touch down on the Texas coast.
	Just between you and me, if a hurricane's headed this way, I want to be 
able to pronounce it.  So, instead of Chantal, a French gal's name, they should 
have called it Hurricane Rufus, or Hurricane Billy Bob, or at least something 
familiar.
	If it doesn't look good on the front of a work shirt or on the back of 
a belt it isn't a proper name for a Texas hurricane.  
	That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
	I can think up of gobs of names that would have been more fitting for a 
Texas storm than Chantal.  How about Hurricane Junior?  Or Hurricane Sonny.  
Or Hurricane Tiny.  Or even Hurricane Little Bit.  CB handles would work OK 
around these parts for hurricane names.
	Also, it wouldn't bother me if they gave our Texas hurricanes names 
like the ones you'd find on the waitresses over at Jim's.
	Hurricane Erlene has a certain je ne sais quoi, punch in the nose to 
it.  A fellow can imagine a hurricane named Erlene tearing the roof off his 
barn without too much trouble.
	Or even Hurricane Jo Lynne.  If a man owned a double-wide trailer that 
got knocked into the next county by a hurricane named Jo Lynne, he could 
about stuff the insurance money in his shirt pocket and forget the whole 
thing.
	But Hurricane Chantal?  I don't know about you, Bub, but I got a few 
bugs squashed on my psychological windshield when I picked up the newspaper
the other day to find out that a hurricane named Chantal, of all things, was
about to invade the Texas coast.
	I am not alone.
	"That's a little overboard," said my friend Jimmy "Boomer" Crouch, a 
Port O'Conner charter boat captain.  "I liked it better when they had Alice, 
Barbara, Carrie, and Delilah -- none of these complicated things."
	You're wondering how we ended up with a hurricane named Chantal in 
Texas.  I called the federal government to find out.
	There are six alphabetical lists of names -- 21 names per list, 126 
names in all -- used for tropical storms in the North Atlantic, the Caribbean, 
and the Gulf of Mexico.  They were picked in the late 1970s by a National 
Weather Service employee, then approved by the World Meteorological 
Organization, an arm of the United Nations.
	The pool of names used for Texas storms is the same pool used for 
storms that go to faraway places where Texas isn't even spoken.  Because of 
this, the list includes a bunch of funny names -- among them Gustav, Beryl, 
Georges, Klaus, Isidore, Philippe, Marco, and Chantal.
	The end result is that folks are occasionally having their houses 
flattened by storms with names they've never heard before.
	And that's a bum deal.  Think about it.  How do you suppose the folks 
in Martinique would feel if their island got torn up by a hurricane named Bubba?
	To fix the problem, Texas ought to get its own list of hurricane names 
and let people in other places name their own darned storms, too.
	Naturally, I've appointed myself as one-man committee in charge of the 
Texas names.
	Clyde, Spike, Slick, Smitty, Stubby, Big Al, Bud, Slim, Stinky, Curly, 
Rusty, Dusty, Lefty, and Fatso are all perfectly wonderful names that ought to 
be on any list.
	Jim Bob, Gatemouth, Hog Breath, Bones, Cowboy, Dub, Dirtball, Shorty, 
Doofus, Knucklehead, Cooky, and Skinny aren't too shabby either.
	Somebody is going to accuse me of being a male chauvinist pig if I 
don't throw in more women's names.  So how about Hurricane Patsy, or Hurricane 
Sissy, or Hurricane Loretta, Bitsy, Bea, Sue Bob, or Edna?  Or Hurricane Aunt 
Jean?
-- 
Mother cooked a big breakfast.  When she cleared off the table, she found a 
quarter and a dime and three pennies by Father's coffee cup.  He'd tipped her.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ghostie * Austin,TX * (512) 471-1082 * ystsai@grumpy.cc.utexas.edu 


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--
Andrew Arensburger            | See, Buzz? It's really fun to be psychotic!
arensb@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov     |                     -- MST3K
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