To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. Just don’t call me late for dinner What’s in a name? That which we call a winter storm by any other name would still require shoveling. You may quote me. The National Weather Service began assigning names for major lake-effect snow storms for identification and archival purposes in the fall of 1995. They now officially label storms in alphabetical order in much the same way they do hurricanes. The difference is, rather than using female names like they have with my daughters Hurricane Andrea, Hurricane Emily, and Hurricane Theresa, the NWS instead decided to use annual themes to scar the names of innocuous things in nature. Left: A white car on the Skyway We now have blizzards with lovely, inauspicious names like Chestnut, a 60-hour lake-effect snowstorm which, during afternoon drive-time on November 20, 2000, began dumping what would eventually total 31 inches of snow on Buffalo, stranding thousands. Beginning on Christmas Eve 2001, a storm with the majestic name Bald Eagle entered my repository of recurring nightmares. Much like Sisyphus, the figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a rock up a mountain only to see it roll down again, we shoveled for five straight days. Just when you thought you were finished, it was time to start all over again. And the freak October 2006 storm, which the media struggled to brand with cute nicknames like Arbogeddon, Friday the Thirteenth, and the Columbus Day Massacre, was officially named Aphid by the National Weather Service. The irony of this name is almost painful. The storm that so badly ravaged so many of Buffalo’s trees now shares a name with the tiny bug that routinely devours my roses. page 49