The current heat wave in Italy is “very unusual,” says Mercalli, due to its long duration: the heat wave is expected to last about two weeks. A study published in May estimated that the average European heat wave would last a week or less until the late 1990s, but has since increased significantly due to global warming.
The sweltering conditions in the Mediterranean coincide with extreme heat elsewhere in the world, such as in the southern US, where temperatures could reach 120 degrees Fahreheit in parts of Arizona. Plus, the Southern European heat wave is linked to one currently affects Morocco and Algeria in North Africa. The countries feel the power of the same anticyclone.
Heat waves are deadly, but meteorologists still disagree on whether to name them and, if so, whether to choose emotional ones or colorful ones, like those from mythology.
Someone unperturbed by Cerberus’ choice, however, is Friederike Otto of Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment.
“I think they should have claimed it,” she jokes, referring to the Italian Meteorological Society’s denial. But she argues a serious point: People still underestimate the threat posed by heat waves. As Otto told WIRED last year before the extreme heat that claimed so many lives in Europe, these weather conditions are often the deadliest of all, even when compared to major storms.
‘Cerberus… it’s the Hound of Hell, isn’t it? I think that’s a pretty appropriate name for a heat wave,” says Otto.
Others are not so sure. Hannah Cloke of the University of Reading agrees that heat waves are “silent killers” and that people often don’t take them as seriously as they should. However, it is not desirable to frighten the public about weather conditions, she says. It’s easy to find comments on social media from people critical of using such a creepy name.
“We’ll run out of dangerous monsters pretty quickly,” Cloke says, arguing that people can become desensitized to this approach. “In the longer term, it’s not ideal.” Simple names, such as those for storms, can be more useful for raising awareness about a weather event and conveying the need for protective action, she adds.
“We believe that a heat wave needs branding and identity,” said Arsht-Rock executive director Kathy Baughman McLeod, pointing out that storms and floods are much more visually dramatic than heat events. The World Meteorological Organization currently gives no official names against heat waves, but Baughman McLeod and her colleagues hope that an internationally recognized and standardized system will emerge in the coming years. “That is exactly our ambition,” she says. She declines to comment on Cerberus’ suitability, noting that the name Xenia only applies to the heat wave in the city of Seville.
Her organization determines whether a heat wave needs a name by using an algorithm that takes into account daytime and nighttime temperatures, cloud cover, humidity and other factors. If the algorithm shows that there is a high risk to life, say a potential 30 percent increase in total mortality, then the heat wave gets a name, says Baughman McLeod.