A Reminder of Life's Fragility

A huge portion of our nation has been experiencing the aftermath of what The Weather Channel dubbed 2026 Winter Storm Fern.

According to USA Today online, The Weather Channel has been naming wintertime storms for the past 13 years to raise awareness of their potential dangers. But the National Weather Service has not and does not intend to give winter storms official names, since they can change rapidly and vary greatly from one area to the next.

In contrast, tropical storms and hurricanes have been formally named here in the Atlantic since the 1950s. But the entire history of naming hurricanes goes back hundreds of years, making the 1979 trend of also naming “hericannes” (hurricanes named after women) and “himacannes” (hurricanes named after women) not so unique. The truly interesting history behind those storm names is fully explained here, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

But as our country continues to stagger under the weight of winter storm Fern, I have had plenty of time (without the previously unappreciated luxury of electricity and running water) to ponder the name of this particular storm.

Now, as a native Mississippian, I am no stranger to winter storms or equally devastating tornadoes. But Fern and her impending icicles and sleet impacted our little farmhouse more than ever before. So, again, I had plenty of quiet, candlelit time to reflect on The Weather Channel’s choice of name for this 2026 storm.

Fern … what a beautiful, gentle, life-giving name. Simply saying this name aloud evokes images of gorgeous green ferns, lusciously lining our driveways and filling our springtime flowerpots. Truly, it’s a name of beauty and peace.

So, why did the obviously educated and supposedly smart folks at The Weather Channel decide that this was the perfect name for the storm they began predicting days and even weeks before it hit?

That was a great question that required the restoration of electricity and internet service to answer. So, as soon as the lights came back on after more than five days of darkness, I got a good night’s sleep, a really hot cup of morning coffee, and then I sat down to research.

Almost immediately, my first question was answered, as I discovered that back in early October 2025, The Weather Channel posted its proposed list of “2025-2026 winter storm names.” Presented in alphabetical order – like those of NOAA’s yearly names for hurricanes and tropical storms – this year’s The Weather Channel list marks the 14th consecutive naming of winter storms.

But I still wondered who thought that Fern would be an appropriate name for a raging winter storm. Granted, I am a writer, and perhaps I think more symbolically than most folks. But even for all the factual, literal people in the country, some of the other storm names proposed on this list seem questionable as well. For example, Obie, Louise, Zeb, and Nell bring up images of sweet, harmless aunts and uncles who would go out of their way to help people, not harm them. So, why these particular names?

The Weather Channel had explanations (or more accurately, excuses) for its name choices for 2025-2026 storms. They do not use any names more than once, and they also proposed to never use retired hurricane names either. So, the choices are limited, especially when making an alphabetical list each year.

But … Fern? Who seriously thought Fern was a great name for a storm that would only be given a proper designation if and when it promised to be a hazardous storm that The Weather Channel described in its own words as a storm that included “treacherous, challenging, driving conditions, potential power outages, and tree damage.”

In my brain, those prerequisites do not compute with the gentle name (or word) of Fern.

But here we sit, in the aftermath of this winter storm, with all the obvious and real damage from this storm, including more than a dozen deaths in just our home state of Mississippi alone.

So, as I sit here typing away at a computer that had no power just a few hours ago, I am reminded of the frailty of life and our complete dependence on God. James 4:14 phrases it this way, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away.”

Or maybe Psalm 103:15-16 describes our frailty even more precisely: “As for man, his days are like grass; like a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place no longer knows about it.”

Wait. Come to think about it, Fern was probably the most appropriate name ever chosen for a winter storm.

After all, just like those beautiful, gentle green ferns of spring, it only takes one moment for an icy, strong wind to remind us just how fragile life really is.

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