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Person
Clement Wragge: Australian meteorologist who began giving women's names to tropical storms before the end of the l9th century. This practice was not officially adopted until 1953, when the United States’ weather services began using female names for storms, although during World War II it was also widespread in weather map discussions among forecasters, especially Air Force and Navy meteorologists who plotted the movements of storms over the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean. The practice of naming hurricanes solely after women came to an end in 1978 when men's and women's names were included in the Eastern North Pacific storm lists. In 1979, male and female names were included in lists for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Read more
History
The inhabitants of Pompeii, as those of the area today, had long been used to minor tremors and wisps of gas from Mt. Vesuvius, and in 65 AD there had been a series of earthquakes serious enough to cause structural damage to houses in town; and in early August of 79 AD, all the town's wells dried up; but the warnings were not sharp enough, and the Roman world was stunned when on August 23 a catastrophic volcanic eruption of the volcano buried the city and obscured the sun on a mild afternoon. Coincidentally, the date was that of the Vulcanalia, the festival of the Roman god of fire. Source: Wikipedia
Film
Twister (1996): directed by Jan de Bont and starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. Tagline: The Dark Side of Nature. Plot Outline: A couple on the point of divorce keep meeting each other because both are researchers who chase tornadoes. Source IMDb
Numbers
37: the number of Atlantic Ocean hurricane names retired into hurricane history. Whenever a hurricane has had a major impact, any country affected by the storm can request that the name of the hurricane be “retired” by agreement of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Retiring a name actually means that it cannot be reused for at least 10 years, to facilitate historic references, legal actions, insurance claim activities, etc. and avoid public confusion with another storm of the same name.
Thing
Seismograph: a piece of equipment which measures and records the strength of an earthquake. Cambridge Dictionaries Online
Song
Another Earthquake! by Aaron Carter
See lyrics
Recipe
Texas Tornado Pudding Cake
See recipe
Wordplay
The following are disaster-related anagrams (a word or phrase made by using the letters of another word or phrase in a different order):
Source: Anagram Genius
Literature
Storm by George R . Stewart. This novel, published by Random House in 1941, is claimed by some to be the origin of the use of womens’ names for storms.
Proverbs
Seamen learn to get to know each other during a storm. (Corsican)
Vows made in storms are forgotten in calms. (English)
God will help a seaman in a storm but the pilot must still remain at the wheel. (German)
A fair day in winter is the mother of a storm. (Romanian)
Source: Creative Proverbs
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