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Adopt a Vortex program Comes of Age!

New Name Giving for 2020 to Start on September 25, 2019, 00:00

№ 272/2019 from Sep 23, 2019

Meteorologists at the Berliner Wetterkarte e. V. (Berlin Weather Map) in cooperation with Freie Universität Berlin are selling naming rights to high and low pressure areas in Central Europe at www.wetterpate.de. The money is used to finance student weather monitoring at the international station in Berlin-Dahlem. In 2020 high pressure areas will have male first names and low pressure areas female first names. The prices remain the same, at 299 euros for highs and 199 euros for lows, with 19 percent VAT added to each.

For the past 65 years, meteorologists at the Berliner Wetterkarte e. V. at the Institute of Meteorology at Freie Universität Berlin have been naming high and low pressure areas. Since 2002 everybody has been invited to join in: thus 2019 marks the 18th time that individuals can name the weather in Central Europe through the “Aktion Wetterpate” or Adopt-a-Vortex program. The sponsors support weather observation in Berlin-Dahlem, which also supports the students in their practical training. All of this makes it possible to continue the more than 110-year climate series at Freie Universität Berlin, which is one of the longest in the world.

A weather sponsorship is a popular and rather unique present for special occasions, birthdays, or even Christmas.  Many people use this as an opportunity to promote their interesting but little known first names. Recent examples of this are Quinctilius, Yukon, Hanneke, and Lysander. Several will be remembered for meteorological reasons:  In February this year the high Frauke brought a warm and sunny early spring, before a series of storms in connection with the lows Bennet and Eberhard moved through Germany in March. The summer was marked by thunderstorms brought by the low Jörn and heat waves brought by the highs Ulla at the end of June and Yvonne in July, with a heat record on July 25, 2019.

Anka and Albert were the first names of weather areas to appear in the Berlin daily newspapers on November 1, 1954. In the meantime, the names are being used in the weather reports of many media. The student weather observers as well as the staff of the Berliner Wetterkarte e. V. and the Institute of Meteorology hope that this continues into the future. Active public participation and presence in the media are needed to ensure the weather monitoring and continuation of the multi-year climate series in the coming years. Please join us and the more than 3,400 people from 17 European countries as well as Brazil, Japan, the USA, and South Africa, who have already joined in the weather naming process.

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