The Germans assign names to Euro pressure systems too !

[stu]

I just found this out to day - the germans assign a name to both high and low pressures systems in order to make them more publically aware.

Have a look at a few of there charts here - Oct 27th 2002 is a good Date

http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/de/wetter/maps/

Looks like Christopher, a 958mb low will batter norway tomorrow - I suspect hurricance force winds as well.

[weatherluvr]

They actually assign names to their high pressures??!?!?

[stu]

Yes that took me by surprise as well and I am still not too sure why they would want name areas of high pressure - still thats the Germans for you.

I am also surprised that they named Detlef over the UK - which synopticaly was a low pressure - but was only a few mb down from te surrounding air.

That Low near to Norway is a real tank !

Perhaps I should have posted this in Global weather

[cycloneye]

Hey stu I moved this thread to Global weather as here it is better than in the tropical forum to talk about this theme.

[stu]

Here is that low just north of Norway - taken at 12:18z today

http://www.btinternet.com/~wokingham.we ... -d-arc.JPG

latest fax charts show that this depression now has a 957mb center

[Lee]

Interesting

[senorpepr]

I remember looking at these charts back when I was in Germany forecasting the weather for Europe. It seems that the naming convention is actually a sponorship program for the Institut für Meteorologie at FU Berlin. You pay so much money to the university and they allow you to pick a name. They assign female names to highs and male names to lows for one year, then they swap. Of course, this is how the university does business now. The origin of the names was very similar to why the name hurricanes... to make it easier for the public to understand. Instead of talking about a high over Poland, they can say "Andrea continues to provide sunny skies throughout Poland."