Bad headline season begins

It's that time of year when the Atlantic churns up storms, weatherpeople give them names, and newspapers pile on the puns. Right now, Dennis is hanging out near Hispaniola, and he's already a tropical storm. I sense a 90-point "menace" coming to a front page near you.

Does anyone else besides me remember the other Hurricane Dennis? He toured North Carolina in 1999, opening for Hurricane Floyd -- a sell-out act if ever there was one. Dennis saw to it that when Floyd arrived, the ground was already saturated. So Floyd piled on more water, and eastern North Carolina just about returned to the sea.

I was living and working at ground zero for these two 'canes at the time. During Dennis, I happened to be driving a litter of kittens from my dad's house to a vet in Rocky Mount so they could get their first shots. During Floyd, of course, I bunked with friends and joined in the effort to get the paper out and get life back to normal.

Dennis, though, was just a footnote to history -- a vice president, as hurricanes go. That's why we're seeing his name on weather maps again. It's been six years since Dennis, and hurricane names are on a six-year cycle. In his first incarnation, Dennis did not do enough damage to inspire the United States to ask that his name be retired. Floyd gets all the credit.

What does it take to retire a hurricane name? I've found two links for you, one from USA Today and another from NOAA. (Any MMC 2100 types reading this blog will notice the uncanny similarity of the newspaper article and the news release.)

Also, Floridians who suffered through last year's repeated battering can rest assured that all four of last year's names, Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, have been retired. Where do hurricanes go when they retire, you ask? Well, they've already been to Florida. White-haired and cranky, they now rock on the porch of the Shady Breeze retirement home, which is moving west-northwest at 14 miles per hour.