Winter Storm... Athena. *sigh*

[Jess 1115]

The nor'easter that threatens the towns and beaches already hit by Hurricane Sandy is just starting to affect the region, and the track changed so a lot of areas are getting their first snowfalls of the year. Actually, the NWS issued a Winter Storm Warning for most of the Philly/NYC metro areas, making it the first storm of the year. And thanks to the Weather Channel, guess what that means!

 

Winter Storm Athena is here.

 

Excuse me a minute.

 

 

Making this worse, not only is this a thing for the Weather Channel, but someone at 30 Rock probably saw that and said, "hey, we're going to use that for ALL of our news properties!" So, NBC News properties are all now referring to this storm as "Athena". 10's been doing cut-ins using the name starting at 1 (beforehand all graphics were for "NOR'EASTER"). Which for them, marks a return to the practice, as this was one of Steve Schwaid's brilliant weather ideas that was quickly killed.

 

Once again, excuse me.

 

 

Regardless of a completely dumb name, this is just more misery on an area that just got trashed by one of the worst storms of all time, so let's use this as an Observation Thread.

 

In Philly, nobody's gone continuous on this, but all of the stations will begin coverage at 4. WCAU and WPVI with their normal 4pm newscasts, and KYW and WTXF will be on an hour early. Dunno how long it will last. Knowing 10, they'll do a 7pm on 10.1 and then keep going on 10.2.

 

At least nobody else will call it Athe-- and there's the twitter post from a CBS 3 staffer using the term #Athena.

 

Excuse me one more time.

 

[24994J 5669]

What's Mr. Gardner's reaction to this?

[IceManNYR 242]

WNBC did not get the memo and is calling it a "nor'easter".

[Jess 1115]

What's Mr. Gardner's reaction to this?

 

 

Meanwhile, Winter Storm Warnings were dropped for the area. And 10 seems to be really trying its hardest to not call this damn thing Athena. The anchors have said Athena a few times, but more often I'm hearing "first winter snow of the season", "nor'easter", "winter weather", and more generic terms. Glenn and the weather team have outright refused to use the name.

 

And they've now dropped "Athena" from the graphics entirely. "November Nor'Easter" seems to have replaced it.

 

Excuse me a bit.

 

[LoadStar 366]

I wonder if the NWS sending out a message to all their offices, reminding them not to use these names because they don't do something stupid like naming winter storms, shamed the TV stations into dropping it.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/national-weather-service-just-say-no-to-athena/2012/11/07/2eee7154-28e8-11e2-bab2-eda299503684_blog.html

[TennTV1983 811]

This deserves a Boromir meme:

 

http://memegenerator...stance/29830226

[RGSJenkins 435]

This deserves an Ardor meme:

 

http://memegenerator...stance/29830226

...unless you're WFSB, and guess what? They don't like it one bit.

[24994J 5669]

...unless you're WFSB, and guess what? They don't like it one bit.

Good Lord.

[AaronQ 288]

...unless you're WFSB, and guess what? They don't like it one bit.

I'm sorry but...

[RGSJenkins 435]

The Connecticut viewers and "Channel 3 Early Warning Forecast Center" have spoken and named the nor'eastern "Ari."

 

Meanwhile, "Your Winter Weather Authority" has named the second storm "Brutus" which is impacting Montana.

[NYNews 54]

http://landing.newsi...ix&VID=23883038

 

WPIX's Mr. G is not a fan of what TWC is doing.

[PTVNews 197]

Neither is Mark Nelson from KPTV.

 

http://fox12weather.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/athena-the-storm-what-a-dumb-idea/

[emmi_18 33]

I came across this clip and it reminded me of the naming of "Athena" last week... I don't know how this worked out when this was implemented in the 90s by WCAU's Earthwatch

 

http://youtu.be/TrK_bxQizUU?t=2m2s

 

its just a clip of Bolaris naming the winter storm "Albert"