Storm Atticus

At some point, after Kentucky gets through all its funerals, there will need to be an assessment of public awareness of the dangerous weather that was to unfold on the night of 10 December. One thing to note is that there was considerable attention on a winter storm, named Atticus under the non-official naming system of The Weather Channel (long time readers of this blog will know our complaints about the naming of winter storms). 

But the storm was seen as a snow event in the Great Lakes. It would have been better to see it as a system that was spawning various complex disturbances as it interacted with air flows in the mid-section of the Continental USA. That doesn't lend itself to the shorthand description of storm, hence the risk of applying the naming system for hurricanes to winter low pressure systems. The National Weather Service short-range public discussions are very careful to talk about systems, but local governments and media may not have understood it the same way.

For now, God save Kentucky.