Naming
Brazilian meteorologists named the storm Catarina for its proximity to (and eventual landfall near) the state of Santa Catarina, although government forecasters initially denied that the storm, which clearly had an open eye and various other tropical morphologies, was a hurricane at all. More than a year after the storm made landfall, Brazilian meteorologists finally classified the storm as a tropical cyclone.
North American forecasters, however, surprised as they were, considered this a hurricane immediately upon the satellite-derived evidence. Since it had clear eyewall structure bounded by deep convective central dense overcast, well-defined spiral outer bands and outflow structure, warm water temperatures of 79 °F (26 °C), little shear, a warm core low, overall tropical characteristics, and occurred in March (equivalent to September in the Northern Hemisphere, the peak of hurricane season) it was considered a hurricane by the National Hurricane Center in the United States.
Though it is most commonly known as Catarina, all names for this storm are "unofficial," in that no World Meteorological Organization-affiliated meteorological agency that monitors hurricanes named it. (Tropical cyclone names are predetermined by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization.) It has also been unofficially called "Aldonça", and the advisory names for it were "01T-ALPHA" from the United Kingdom's Met Office, and "50L-NONAME" from the United States' National Hurricane Center, which keeps it well outside normal designation, which start at 1L for named storms and use 90L to 99L for possible storms.
There is also no official naming convention for the meteorological term of tropical cyclones with winds of at least 74 mph (119 km/h) (i.e., hurricane, typhoon, cyclone) in the South Atlantic basin; however, because it was in the Southern Hemisphere, it is typically considered Cyclone Catarina, "cyclone" being the predominant term for Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclones.
Read more about this topic: Cyclone Catarina
Famous quotes containing the word naming:
“Husband,
who am I to reject the naming of foods
in a time of famine?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul—half a drop! ah, my Christ!—
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!—
Yet will I call on him!—O, spare me, Lucifer!—
Where is it now? ‘T is gone; and see where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!—
Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!”
—Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
“The night is itself sleep
And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
Our notes to each other, always repeated, always the same.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)