Weather Channel to start naming snowstorms

CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) - While the 22News Storm Team is not in the practice of naming snow storms, one cable network plans to start doing it this winter.

The National Weather Service has been naming Tropical Storms and Hurricanes for years, but there is no official list of names for winter storms.

The Weather Channel , however, announced that it plans to name storms this winter even though the National Weather Service does not.

They say the naming of winter snow storms will raise awareness.

Right now, most big snow storms are named by the dates or in some cases the holidays they occurred on, like the April Fools Blizzard of 1997, and more recently the October Snow Storm of last year.

Not everyone thinks naming winter storms is such a great idea.

Janie Tarver of Chicopee told 22News, “I think that could be very confusing, because you don't know what storm they're relating to, so you kind of have to be able to look at what the Weather Channel says, and what the local TV says, so I think for a lot of people it could be confusing.”

David Bradley of Springfield added, “To me, it doesn't make a difference, a storm is a storm.”

There are some TV stations that already name storms, and since they use their own naming system, that could make it even more confusing for people.