Xylia is the Name for the Storm, But Do You Want it for Your Kid?
If you're looking for an unusual name for your baby girl, and don't want to forget that you just shoveled two to three feet of snow from your sidewalk and driveway, here's a suggestion courtesy of The Weather Channel:
"Xylia."
That's the name The Weather Channel designated for the winter storm that shellacked Wyoming and Colorado and headed east through the Plains states this past weekend.
And you thought the only names attributable to the storm were cuss words.
The Weather Channel uses several rules when it lays out the list of names at the beginning of the winter storm season and is about to attribute a name to a storm:
- The storm is forming to be one of historic or record-breaking proportions according to forecast maps and models.
- The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning.
- A storm, blizzard or ice storm warning identified by the National Weather Service as covering at least a population of 2 million.
- A storm, blizzard or ice storm warning covering an area of at least 400,000 square kilometers (154,400 square miles).
The Weather Channel's winter storm names exclude any current Atlantic and eastern Pacific hurricane names on the National Hurricane Center lists for the next six years, and any retired hurricane names that are particularly deadly, destructive and historic.
The Weather Channel started naming winter storms for the 2012-2013 season. It is the only organization to do this; no other private or government agencies do so.
Southern Wyoming was part of storm Yogi in April 2013, and storm Achilles in late April to early May 2013. (The letters ran out so they started over again.)
Only the first year of these named storms exceeded the 26 letters in the alphabet. "Athena" was the first "A" storm and "Achilles" was the second "A" storm.
To get the names themselves, people from The Weather Channel work with a group of students from Bozeman (Montana) High School. The 2012-2013 year was heavy on Greek and Roman mythology, with a smattering of Shakespeare -- "Iago" -- and Tolkien -- "Gandolf."
It's only mid-March, and The Weather Channel has two names to go -- Yardley and Zayne -- before it has to start over.
But naming storms is problematic because winter storms can have rain in one place and a blizzard in another place with all of it covering a rather amorphous area compared to hurricanes which are well-defined weather events, according to thoughtco.com. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its National Weather Service and AccuWeather don't name these storms.
As for the name itself, Xylia didn't even arrive on the scene until 1994, according to everything-birthday.com.
Since then, 0 boys and 374 girls have been given that name.
So what else is named Xylia?
According The Plant List, Xylia is a genus in the family leguminosae, as in legumes like beans and chickpeas.
Ironically, especially when it comes to babies, Xylia is a brand name of a birth control pill.
So now that your muscle aches from shoveling snow are easing, your vehicle is unstuck and you're facing a stream of slush in the street, it's time to think about naming your new daughter.
Xylia?
Probably not.
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