A native of Chicago and a graduate of the University of Missouri, Eric Bernsee has enjoyed residing in Greencastle for more than 25 years. Years of consuming McDonald's iced teas, Dairy Castle flurries and Marvin's GCBs have helped make him the man he is today.

Wake me when it's time for the wrath of Winter Storm Khan

Posted Saturday, December 22, 2012, at 9:44 AM

If you're reading this, and it's after 3:11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 21, then the Mayans were wrong and we can get on with the important things in life.

Like naming winter storms.

Yes, naming winter storms. It's all apparently the doing of The Weather Channel, and the fine folks there are trying to convince us that the current winter storm rumbling across Indiana and the upper Midwest is Draco.

Not Drago. Not Drano. Not Dasher or Dancer. But Draco.

Of course, with Draco starting with the letter D, that means it must be the fourth winter storm of the season. But does anyone even remember Winter Storm Athena? Brutus? Or et tu, Caesar?

Brace yourself, we're in for some interesting storm names the rest of this winter.

Draco will be followed by Euclid (sounding more like a cough drop), Freyr (complete with odd, spellcheck-busting spelling), Gandolf (some fugitive from a Harry Potter novel no doubt), Helen, Iago (a crossword puzzle staple) and Jove (prepare for some headline fun: "Winter misery, by Jove").

But finally, 11 winter storms in, we will get Khan. Now there's a real headline writer's dream.

If it's any kind of a wintry blast, I can see the headlines now: "Wrath of Khan hits Indiana." "Wrath of Khan goes where no storm has gone before."

"Star Trek" fans, take a bow.

After Khan, we get Luna, Mangus and Nemo (who no doubt will "finding" his way into Indiana and other locales).

Then it's Orko (not Orkin, the bug killer), Plato (ponder that a while) and Q (are we paying homage to James Bond here?).

Rocky, Saturn, Triton (sounding like missiles) and Urko (better if it were Urkel -- as in "Did I do that?") are next.

Rounding out the 2012-13 list are Virgil, Walda, Xerxes (a Scrabble player's dream), Yogi (the it's-never-over-'til-it's-over storm) and Zeus.

Let's just hope we don't get past Euclid or Gandolf this winter.

Meanwhile, just in case this name game has left you wondering about upcoming hurricane names, here are the 2013 varieties:

Atlantic hurricane names: Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dean, Erin, Felix, Gabrielle, Humberto, Ingrid, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Noel, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van and Wendy.

Pacific hurricane names: Alvin (sorry, no Theodore or Simon), Barbara, Cosme, Dalila, Erick, Flossie, Gil, Henriette, Ivo, Juliette, Kiko, Lorena, Manuel, Narda, Octave, Priscilla, Raymond, Sonia, Tico, Velma, Wallis, Xina, York and Zelday.

Ah, at last Hurricane Erick, I welcome thee ... just stay out of my way.