Ever mindful of our fascination with weather (well, maybe only The Shofar editor, nevertheless…) and consternation when weather doesn’t cooperate with outdoor plans, we bring you the official storm names for 2022, announced by the National Weather Bureau. Thanks to The Shofar’s crack research department, you can amaze your friends with this inside information at your next swanky cocktail party (masked, of course).       By the way, the final name for the 2021 hurricane season was Wanda, which transitioned into Tropical Storm Wanda on Dec. 27 after roaming the Atlantic as a subtropical storm. Whew! Wanda was the last name on the list. In the past, after the alphabet was exhausted, the weather bureau would turn to the Greek alphabet. But that system of naming storms has been abandoned because so many of the Greek letters sound too much alike (Zeta, Beta, Theta…) Now, the World Meteorological Organization has developed a supplemental list of names to use when the standard list is exhausted in a given season.

Here now, the standard list for 2022: Alex, Bonnie, Colin, Danielle, Earl, Fiona, Gaston, Hermine, Ian, Julia, Karl, Lisa, Martin, Nicole, Owen, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tobias, Virginie (not Virginia), Walter.