The Weather Channel  has, for a second year, devised names for winter storms.

The Weather Channel explains it wanted “to find the best possible ways to communicate severe weather information on all distribution platforms, including social media. Hashtags are an intrinsic part of social media, and a storm name proved to be the best way to efficiently and systematically convey storm information. Storm-name hashtags have been used with tropical storms and hurricanes for years, and Winter Storm Nemo’s billion-plus impressions on Twitter last winter demonstrated that the same system is ideal for winter storms as well.”

Not everyone is nuts over the idea of names and the practice stirred some controversy in the weather world last year when an AccuWeather executive issued a statement criticizing the idea.

"In unilaterally deciding to name winter storms, the Weather Channel has confused media spin with science and public safety,” he said. “We have explored this issue for 20 years and have found that this is not good science and will mislead the public. Winter storms are very different from hurricanes.”

The storm for 2013-14, derived from lists created by Bozeman (Mont.) High School students, and named after mythological figures, are:

Atlas

Boreas

Cleon 

Dion  

Electra

Falco

Gemini

Hercules

Ion

Janus

Kronos 

Leon

Maximus

Nika 

Orion

Pax

Quintus

Rex

Seneca 

Titan  

Ulysses

Vulcan

Wiley

Xenia

Yona

Zephyr

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