Same reason the weather channel wanted to name winter storms
The Weather Channel's whole purpose is ratings.
They increase their audience by making every summer rainstorm and every winter snowstorm sound like an unprecedented natural disaster.
The last time we had a thunderstorm, I was watching the tail end of a late night baseball game on TV.
They broke into the game with a breathless announcement of a tornado watch, with the conditions right for possible formation of a tornado.
The weather chick said you should wake your children and take them to your "safe place" until the threat passed.
"Safe place" is one of their new buzzwords, like "first responders" and "rain events".
Like the Weather Channel, local TV stations have spent so much on radar equipment, they have to make every rain a catastrophe.
I feel sorry for the children of halfwits who take TV weather bullshit seriously, huddled in their "safe place" every couple of weeks.
It'll finish off any sanity the little rugrats have left after the paranoia generated by all the "Amber Alert" hype.