[rant ON]
Yes, we're about to have a Tropical-Storm-turned-Hurricane develop in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean named "Katia." Today is the 6th anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina on the northern Gulf Coast, and we're now talking about Katia.
You know, this is why meteorologists are in meteorology and not in creative writing or teaching Tone Deafness/Sensitivity 101. Hurricane names for the Atlantic are used every 6 years on a rotating basis, and this year we happen to have 2005's list. If you remember back in 2005, it was the most active hurricane season we've ever recorded -- we exhausted the English alphabet and had to use 6 Greek letters to name storms. When a hurricane is bad enough, they retire the name for sensitivity reasons. They retired Katrina and Rita.
What did they replace Katrina and Rita with? Katia and Rina. You've got to be burger-flippin' kiddin' me, right?
The WMO seriously couldn't come up with any better names? What was it, some "oh yeah, yeah, uh, I have a meeting at 12, so just rearrange the letters and stamp my signature" decision? They took the letters R and N out of Katrina, and added a letter N to Rita. Wow! Now when Katia or Rina make landfall, we totally won't constantly have Katrina or Rita in the back of our minds. Thanks WMO, y'all really think highly of us here in the Atlantic Basin.
Was it seriously that hard to Google "girls names that start with K" or "girls names that start with R?" Kaylee, Kacey, Kimberly, Kamryn, Kandice, Kari, Keisha, Rachelle, Raelynne, Raven, Roseanne, Ryleigh, Ruby, Rosa. Took me 30 seconds. I just hope that soon-to-be-Hurricane Katia stays farrrrrrr away from land, and even farther away from the Gulf of Mexico.
Thank FSM we didn't have these people in charge back a few years ago, or we might have to deal with Hurricanes Chamomile, Hubo, Andruw and Isnotabell. Buncha dumbass jackwaffling bricklickin' idiots.
[/rant OFF]
So anyway, here's Tropical Depression 12:
It's expected to become Tropical Storm Katri...I mean Katia at some point today or tomorrow, and gradually intensify into a hurricane from there. The bad news is that our hurricane models only extend out a week or so, which means that there's really no accurate way to tell if Katia will be a threat to any landmasses. If so, it won't be until late next week, so we have plenty of time to worry and speculate and badmouth the WMO for being insensitive clods.
10:42 AM PT: Katia is pronounced KAH-tyah, according to the National Hurricane Center's pronunciation guide. Tomayto, tomahto. They should have spelled it "Katya" if they wanted it to be nothing like Katrina.
1:28 PM PT: It overjoys me that I angered DailyKos's Very Serious People League with my unimportant rant. Right, because the only unimportant rants allowed on this site are meta flame wars and Obama-bash-a-thons. Forgot. Sorry. :)
2:50 PM PT: Updated to replace the image with the 5PM advisory.