This winter, Hercules, Titan, Vulcan or Ulysses may clobber your town with snow, winds and disruption. If everything goes according to plan, they'll take Twitter by storm as well. At least, that's what the Weather Channel is banking on.
For the second year in a row, the news outlet will dole out names for winter storms, giving broadcasters, meteorologists, citizens and Twitter users an easy way to reference the event. However, the channel's initiative hasn't convinced its critics, and the national weather authorities and competing outlets refuse to endorse it.
See also: Hurricane Sandy in Photos: 1 Year Later
"You can't talk about something if it doesn't have a name," said Bryan Norcross, a Weather Channel meteorologist. "When something significant happens, it wants to have a name."
The original idea for naming winter storm came in 2011, when Weather Channel employees started using Twitter to gather news and updates about weather-related events. However, they soon realized it was hard to aggregate tweets about winter storms because, unlike tropical storms or hurricanes that carry official names from the World Meteorological Organization, winter storms didn't have titles.
"Every tweet that is about something needs a hashtag, otherwise you can't find it. There is no good filtering system,” Norcross said.
However, not everyone likes the idea of naming winter storms. Critics say the Weather Channel's scheme creates confusion, and one year later, they haven't budged.
AccuWeather founder Joel Myers last year said the competing channel "has confused media spin with science and public safety," party because the scheme is not endorsed industry-wide.
The National Weather Service (NWS) didn't back the channel's initiative last year because a "winter storm's impact can vary from one location to another, and storms can weaken and redevelop, making it difficult to define where one ends and another begins."
Susan Buchanan, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the parent agency of the NWS, said the two agencies still have no position on the Weather Channel's naming scheme this year. And, referring to last year's statement, she added: "We do not comment on private sector weather products and services."
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) hasn't changed its stance either. Executive Director Keith Seitter said last year the team was surprised by the Weather Channel's move and had "no position" on the scheme. When Mashable asked Seitter about the society's stance this year, he maintained the AMS still has no position on the subject.
James Spann, an ABC meteorologist who was named broadcaster of the year by the NWS in 2012, said the current situation could lead to "total confusion" if the NWS or other broadcasters start using their own set of names. The solution, for him, is to have the AMS "lead the charge" and "decide if winter storm names is a good or bad idea." Then, the NWS should designate the names and develop guidelines on using them.
"I don't mind the idea of winter storms, but in my opinion it needs to be across the entire weather enterprise, not just one cable channel," Spann said. "We must be on the same page, or confusion will rule."
Yet, when asked whether the AMS had considered weighing this issue, Seitter said there has been "no official discussion."
To its credit, the Weather Channel tightened its naming criteria this year in an attempt to make the system more objective.
Last year, according to Norcross, the main criteria was to name storms that would hit a city or impact a "significant number" of people, and if it the storms were truly "disruptive" — affecting travel plans or mass transportation, for example. This year, the outlet will rely more on the NWS' winter storm thresholds, which use certain measurable indicators when issuing warnings.
"In essence, we want a system that is in place to name the storms, as opposed to having a subjective component to it," he said.
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BONUS: 20 Gripping Photos of Extreme Weather
Lightning strikes the Willis Tower in Chicago on June 12, 2013.
Cows search for edible grass in drought strickened paddocks of Waiuku, New Zealand on March 12, 2013.
The digitally enhanced photograph taken in January 2005 shows a spectacular aurora borealis above the frozen landscape of Bear Lake, Alaska. The image was voted Wikipedia Commons Picture of the Year for 2006.
Displaced residents immerse themselves in massive mud deposits from the mud volcano in Sidoarjo village, located on Indonesia's eastern Java island on May 29, 2013 to dramatize their sufferings during a protest marking the seventh year of the disaster.
A child watches as high waves caused by typhoon Bolaven crash over the side of a road barrier on Aug. 28, 2012 in Qingdao, China.
A roller coaster sits in the Atlantic Ocean after the Fun Town pier it sat on was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy on Nov. 1, 2012 in Seaside Heights, N.J. The roller coaster was removed by crane in May.
Half of the New York City skyline sits in darkness after Hurricane Sandy, on Oct. 30, 2012. Photo taken in Weehawkin, N.J.
Picture dated March 18, 2009 shows an undersea volcano eruption about 6 to 7 miles off the Tongatapu coast of Tonga, sending plumes of steam and smoke hundreds of feet into the air. Tonga's head geologist, Kelepi Mafi, said there was no apparent danger to residents of Nuku'alofa and others living on the main island of Tongatapu. Image via Images
Three people assemble a snowman at the foot of The Washington Monument in Washington D.C., during a winter snowstorm that buried the city under record-breaking snowfall on Feb. 6, 2010. Image via CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP/Getty Images
A water spout (tornado) hits the sea behind a surfer on Sydney's Bondi Beach on May 17, 2010. A rare sight in Australia, the water spout lasted around five minutes and expired before landfall.
Ice boulders left behind after a flood caused by the overflowing of a lake, east of the town of Kangerlussuaq on Sept. 1, 2007 in Greenland. Scientists believe that Greenland, with its melting ice caps and disappearing glaciers, is an accurate thermometer of global warming.
Volcanic scientists leave the area after collecting samples of ash to send to labs to analyze its content, in eastern Iceland on April 15, 2010. A cloud of ash from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, which erupted on the morning of April 14, 2010 disrupted European airspace for several days. Image via OMAR OSKARSSON/AFP/Getty Images
This photo, taken Dec. 26, 2004, shows people fleeing as a tsunami wave comes crashing ashore at Koh Raya, part of Thailand's territory in the Andaman islands. The photographer who took this picture escaped without injury, but retreated at the first wave and watched as a second wave tore apart the wooden buildings, with a third and largest wave coming forward and "ripping apart the cement buildings like they were made of balsa wood."
A cloud of ash billowing from Puyehue volcano near Osorno in southern Chile on June 5, 2011. Puyehue volcano erupted for the first time in a half-century on June 4, 2011, producing a column of gas 6 miles high. Image via CLAUDIO SANTANA/AFP/Getty Images
Children look at the thousands of pelagic red crabs that washed ashore in San Diego on May 7, 2002. The phenomenon was a signal of a brewing El Nino event. The crabs, also known as tuna crabs, normally live off Baja California, Mexico, but they rode ocean currents as warm waters from the tropical Pacific migrated farther north than usual in a growing El Nino event.
This picture, taken by Sendai city official Hiroshi Kawahara on March 11, 2011 and released through Jiji Press on March 25, 2011, shows muddy tsunami water swallowing vehicles and houses at a bridge in Sendai city in Miyagi prefecture. Image via HIROSHI KAWAHARA/AFP/Getty Images
Evacuated Matapit Islanders watch Tavurvur volcano erupt, sending ash and rocks over the already devastated city of Rabaul on New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea on Oct. 7, 2006. Image via BRUCE ALEXANDER/AFP/Getty Images
Japanese macaque monkeys relax in the hot springs at Jigokudani-Onsen (Hell Valley) on Dec. 27, 2005 after record snowfall hit Jigokudani, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.
Rainbow stretches across AT&T Park during the first inning between the San Francisco Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sept. 5, 2012 in San Francisco.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite acquired this rare, nearly cloud-free view of Alaska on June 17, 2013. Under normal conditions, this area of the state is known for being the cloudiest region of the United States.
Image: Mehdi Taamallah/AFP/Getty Images