Buying Cleopatra

The island of Sardinia suffered a significant rain event Tuesday when close to 20" of rain fell in roughly 90 minutes. This event has claimed the lives of 17 people and ongoing damage assessments indicate the town of Olbia has received much of the damage with 9' of standing water in some spots.

While any event that takes lives and negatively impacts communities is a tragedy, I was interested to read in this Al Jazeera article, that Cyclone Cleopatra was not in fact a Cyclone, but a deep low pressure system. So how did it achieve cyclone status and who gave it the name 'Cleopatra?'

While I don't know who was the first to incorrectly attach the term "cyclone" to this weather system, I do know more about who named it. Since 2002 our friends at the The Institute of Meteorology at the Free Institute in Berlin have been allowing the general public to name the weather systems across Europe. When funding for the institutes continuous weather observation was cut to 8 hours per day, volunteers picked up the slack for the other 16. In response to this donations flooded in and the "Adopt a Vortex" program began.

But before you get too excited, the price for having your name associated with those sunny days will cost you 299 Euro or roughly $400...it's a bit cheaper for a low front. Still interested? Of course you are! Because when your weather system is baptized (their term, not mine) and runs its course, you'll receive a "Abschlusspaket, which is German for "Abschlusspaket." This "Abschlusspaket" will contain a certificate with the date of your system, it's life story, and some weather maps.

Just imagine if the dynamic weather wonder duo of Alexandra Steele and the cyborg weather phenom Jim Cantore were to continually reference the high pressure system you purchased as it brought sunshine and good weather to a portion of the country. While I don't see it happening, if someone starts a petition...sign me up.

Abschlusspaket not included