Aemet already has the list of names for the danas that should really worry us

You have to prepare to keep track of ‘Marta’, ‘Samuel’ or ‘Claudia’. And they are not the protagonists of a new series, but the names that we could hear in the news throughout this fall and winter. All because the aemet has announced That from now on, great impact are going to be their own name, as with the storms. And it has more marketing than we believe behind.

The announcement. Done Through its official channels and accompanied by a complete list of names that will be used from now on in collaboration with the meteorological services of Portugal (IPMA), France (Météo-France), Belgium (IRM) and Luxembourg (meteolux). The first Dana to be baptized will be ‘Alice’.

But this movement, beyond the anecdote, raises a background question. Did we really need this system to understand that a dangerous storm is coming? Didn’t we have a perfectly settled term and feared by all? Yes, we are thinking about the “Cold drop“

List of names that will receive the DANAS of great impact in Spain.

The differences. For years, Aemet meteorologists have fought a pedagogical battle for society to distinguish between Dana and Cold drop. They insisted that ‘Dana’ is the technical term that describes an isolated cold air bag in the high layers of the atmosphere. A relatively common phenomenon that does not always trigger torrential rains and catastrophes on the surface.

However, for the general public, the concept remained diffuse. The word “Dana” did not have the evocative power or the warning load that the “cold drop” did have. The cold drop, although meteorologically inaccurate, it was a concept that everyone understood perfectly: It meant apocalyptic skies, torrential rains and floodsespecially in the Mediterranean arch.

The problem. The Aemet has seen that using the term Dana for everything created a lot of confusion. On their own website, it points to “the appointment of the DANAS with great impact will help prevent them from being associated univocally with serious or catastrophic impacts.”

That is, they seek to create a new category: the “Dana with name”, which would be the equivalent of the old and dreaded cold drop, leaving the term “Dana” (dry) for the general atmospheric phenomenon without serious consequences.

Marketing strategy. Baptizing the Dana with names is a brilliant communication strategy without a doubt. Giving a first name to a meteorological phenomenon humanizes it, makes it a concrete and easy to continue in social networks and media. Without a doubt, it is much more effective to capture attention to say “the Dana ‘Benjamin’ is close to the coast” that “a system of low pressures associated with a Dana will cause instability.”

And it is something that has already been shown. With the big storms that have received names such as ‘Filomena’ the reality is that they have been recorded in the collective memory and was associated with the impact it would have. Now this same effect wants to move to a phenomenon that aims to be quite common In our day to day.

What we lose. The question is if, in the process, we are not losing a part of our popular meteorological culture. The “cold drop” was a term of ours, loaded with history and experience. It was the definitive notice that passed from grandparents to grandchildren. Now, it is replaced by an international and standardized name system, more precise and effective for alerts, yes, but also more aseptic than does not transfer that tradition so entrenched in many.

We already have the first. A few hours of announcing these new names, the Aemet He has released it before the arrival of a heavy and persistent rainy days in the Eastern Peninsular and Balearic Islands. That is why it will now be known as ‘Dana Alice’ and already warns the risk of flooding from Wednesday to Sunday.

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