This is really about how my cursed librarian mind works.
Tegan writes some innocuous thing: “I suspect Katrina will be retired soon” [from the Atlantic hurricane name list.] So, now I need to know: “How DOES the retiring of a name happen?” I find that here.
Then I need to know what hurricane names HAVE been retired. This site from NOAA is good, but dated (2002)
The FEMA for kids site is fairly limited. Do they think that kids aren’t very bright?
The USA Today article is much better, as it answers my next question, “What hurricane is the last to be retired, alphabetically speaking?” The answer, Roxanne, which hit the Yucatan peninsula in 1995. (Will Rita join its ranks?)
But, I’m the librarian, and I keep looking. The BEST site I found is here, the ONLY site which indicates that both Dennis and Emily were retired this year. Not even the World Meteorological Organization is showing that yet, because their reports tend to be annual in nature.
As usual, I found things I really wasn’t looking for, but have some entertainment value, such as this article about naming storms.
Or annoying things, like an article about how, according to e-Week, Hurricane Rita is heading onshore, and Internet criminals around the globe are already rigging up fake charity sites. However, several teams of security watchdogs are readying countermeasures to ward off the “cyber-looters.”
If I’m doing research for someone, and if I think the person might appreciate it, I might throw in some really tangential stuff, such as the lyrics to a song.