OFF BEAT: Weather Channel to start naming winter storms

Residents of the Snowbelt soon will be on a first-name basis with the winter storms blanketing their yards.

The Weather Channel announced this week that it will begin using formal names to indentify winter storms.

In a release explaining the decision to personify the storms, the company said the bequeathing of names “adds to awareness” and makes it much easier to reference a storm in social media. Moreover, the company noted that hurricanes and tropical storms have been given names since the 1940s.

Nonetheless, critics of the naming scheme have noted that summer storms are named by a governmental agency, the National Hurricane Center, while the Weather Channel is a private company.

Despite the blizzard of criticism, the Weather Channel seems intent in plowing ahead.

“This is an ambitious project,” the company said in a posting on its website. “However, the benefits will be significant.”