Coming to your local weather report: Hurricane Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch?
Over the weekend, the National Weather Service announced the retirement of its existing hurricane nomenclature system. Starting next year, a pilot program will allow storms to be sponsored by product advertisers. Although details are yet to be finalized, businesses will acquire sponsorships through a competitive bidding process.
Hurricane profit centers
The director acknowledged that fees would increase as the storm strengthened, with a Category-5 bringing in the most money. “If we had this system back when Katrina was around, we’d probably have paid Christmas bonuses that year,” he said with a grin.
The National Weather Service will implement a budget plan as well. “We aren’t including the other stages of the storm in the sponsorship,” said Uccellini. “That means we can sell sub-sponsorships at reduced prices to lesser advertisers.” He laid out a hypothetical scenario. “For example, tropical disturbance Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, then tropical depression 2020 Hyundai Elantra, followed by tropical storm Vagisil Sensitive Plus Wash. When the storm reaches hurricane strength, it would upgrade to, say, Hurricane Diet Coke. After it finally weakens to a tropical storm again, it would revert back to Vagisil Sensitive Plus Wash, and so on.”
Uccellini indicated that separate sponsorships for each category of hurricane were considered, but ultimately rejected. “That would just be too confusing,” he said.
Trump lauds ‘big, beautiful hurricanes’
Standing in front of Air Force One, President Trump signaled that he was on board with the sponsorship program. “I love it,” he beamed. “I think it’s a fantastic plan. Hopefully, we’ll have enough storms to raise billions and billions of dollars to build a great, powerful wall. The radical Democrats want open borders and won’t pay more than $2 for the wall, so we’ll get our money from big, beautiful hurricanes.”
Surprisingly, the plan received Democratic support as well. “The current approach is clearly racist,” asserted Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Have we ever had a Hurricane D’Marcus or Hurricane Jamshid?” She pounded her fist on her desk. “No we have not. And that demonstrates our government’s racism toward African-Americans and Iranians.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was also a fan. “Everyone called me Charley until Hurricane Charley devastated Cuba and Florida in 2004,” he said. “It shook me up so badly that I gave up the name right then and there.” Schumer went on to label major hurricanes “emotional terrorists” to individuals who shared the name. “I felt like I was responsible for all of Charley’s destruction,” he confessed. “I haven’t stopped wetting the bed ever since.”
Sponsors are lining up
If early reactions are any indication, securing storm sponsorships will be easy. “Hey, we already blow,” acknowledged Conair marketing director Patricia Nunez. “Count Count Chocula Chocolatey Cereal Bars with Spooky-Fun Marshmallows in,” said General Mills president Jeff Harmening. “Yo quiero Taco Hurricane,” quipped Taco Bell Global Chief Brand Officer Marisa Thalberg.
According to a spokesperson, the Trump Organization might even get in on the action. “The president would be delighted to see Hurricane Mar-a-Lago absolutely level a liberal city like San Francisco or Chicago,” said Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway. “Even he would pay his bill on time for that.”
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