When the Term "Heatwave" Is No Longer Enough

This is a news article about a journalist using a more intensive adjective to describe an intensified phenomenon. The original Reuters article would probably have been more compelling reading.

We should name them after oil company execs

This summer I’ve seen many people miffed (or worse) but the usage of the Italian equivalent of “heatwave” in the media coverage: both general news and meteorologists insisted that “the fourth heat wave was finally passing” or that “a fifth heat wave was looming” while the general experience was that it was insufferably hot from may until September, with little to no relief. It felt like a cruel joke.

Hmm. So, they suggest we move from the term “heat wave” to “heat storm”. Is that the right move? Is that the right analogy?

If they’re getting bigger and more destructive, then wouldn’t a better term be “heat tsunami”? Is there something else between a “wave” and a “tsunami” or “tidal wave”?

If they’re getting larger in size and more omnipresent, then wouldn’t a better term be “sea of heat” or maybe “ocean of heat”? Or is there a better term that sits between “wave” and “sea”?

Or maybe, if they’re getting larger are getting longer in time and more destructive, we should be talking about “heat monsoons”?

Or, maybe it’s the word “heat” that needs to change? If stuff is getting hotter, maybe we need to switch to “inferno”? Or perhaps “Hellfire”? Maybe there are other heat-related words that we should be using instead?

The term “heat storm” just seems so … anodyne. Small. Minimal. Bigger than a heat wave, okay. But still, not in keeping with the magnitude of the problem that seems to be facing this entire planet.

Seems to me like we need someone with a bigger thesaurus looking at this issue and helping us come up with a lot more options for what we are now seeing.

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The natural state of the earth is to have no polar icecaps. The earth is currently in an ice-age.

More people die of cold than of heat.

Stop with the fearmongering.

Words are words. The term does what it says on the tin. No change is needed. Article is whiney.