Study claims female named hurricanes are more deadly

[RL3AO]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/06/02/female-named-hurricanes-kill-more-than-male-because-people-dont-respect-them-study-finds/

Here is an article responding trying to make counter-arguments.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/06/02/why-have-female-hurricanes-killed-more-people-than-male-ones/

I'd really want to read into the methodology before judging too much, but its an interesting study.

[Cleveland Kent Evans]

Here is the journalistic report about this that quotes me on the subject:

http://www.livescience.com/46044-hurric ... eaths.html

You have to remember in interpreting this research that they didn't actually use the "male vs. female" designation of the names alone as their variable, but instead a rating of the "masculinity" or "femininity" of the names on all the hurricane lists since 1950. Though male names are obviously going to average out way more "masculine" than female names, there are also going to be differences within each set on gender stereotypes. For instance, among names retired before 1979, I would bet that Camille, Celia, and Audrey would be rated as being more "feminine" than Agnes, Carmen, and Ione by most Americans even though they are all "female" names.

[CrazyC83]

What about non-US storms? Three of the deadliest - David, Mitch and Stan - were male names.

[Cleveland Kent Evans]

What about non-US storms? Three of the deadliest - David, Mitch and Stan - were male names.

You can't assume that a name would have exactly the same degree of "masculinity" or "femininity" in a Spanish or French speaking context. Since they didn't have data on that from Spanish or French speaking cultures, they couldn't include deaths in other countries in their analysis.

[thetruesms]

I don't have access to the article, and really don't feel like paying 10 bucks to do so. But, from those that do have access to it and have written about it, there seem to be a lot of very serious questions about the quality of the research.

But, regardless of whether or not this was well executed, it's definitely a very interesting question. It's also a question that I think has been unnecessarily derided by meteorologists as they pile on to weaknesses (real or perceived) in this one instance.

If we're going to be truly serious about studying the response to forecasts and warnings, and what impacts our presentation of weather information has, it's paramount that names be examined. The naming of tropical cyclones is singular in meteorology, and gets reinforced as the name gets repeated over and over and over again. It's particularly important to examine the potential impacts of implied attitudes, because they could influence actions by people who don't even realize they're subconsciously responding in a different manner.

If there is some kind of adjustment, then maybe we do need to consider changing how we name storms, or change our messaging to compensate for name influence. Or maybe we'll find there is no impact, and things are fine the way they are. I really have no idea. But I do know that we should probably figure it out so we can make the best choices for the future.

Side note, if you're interested in implicit attitude stuff, check out https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ There's also a ton of tests you can take to help their research. Maybe I'm just a freak, but I think they're kind of fun.

[Hurricane_Luis]

What a load of rubbish this is. Its a Hurricane, Is can kill you no matter what it is called. Just a question whether you get out of the way of it or not,

[Cleveland Kent Evans]

:roll: What a load of rubbish this is. Its a Hurricane, Is can kill you no matter what it is called. Just a question whether you get out of the way of it or not,

I don't think you understand the point here. The article isn't about the behavior of hurricanes; it's about the behavior of some people who aren't as likely to "get out of the way" if the hurricane's name doesn't sound "scary" to them.

[Cleveland Kent Evans]

:roll: What a load of rubbish this is. Its a Hurricane, Is can kill you no matter what it is called. Just a question whether you get out of the way of it or not,

I don't think you understand the point here. The article isn't about the behavior of hurricanes; it's about the behavior of some people who aren't as likely to "get out of the way" if the hurricane's name doesn't sound "scary" to them.

[Frank2]

Don't tell that to the folks like myself who were impacted by Hurricane Andrew...

P.S. Per the previous post, perhaps you need to change the name of the topic - something like "Study claims residents ignore male-named hurricanes", or something similar...

Frank