Nor'easters in Duckburg

[Katie Sullivan]

Once upon a time (circa seventh grade) I wanted to be a
meterologist, and I still watch the Weather Channel on TV all
the time, so I might be qualified to give an answer here.

"Nor'easters" are indeed storms that strike the eastern coast of
the U.S.  They start usually off the coast of the Georgia/South
Carolina area, then move up the coast.  The term is, logically,
never applied to storms on the west coast.  There isn't a
particular term besides just plain old "gale" or "storm" that
applies to storms striking the west U.S. coast.

I believe there are also times when Barks refers to "hurricanes"
hitting Duckburg (the jumping frog story?)  True hurricanes
don't hit that part of the continent.  Sometimes a tropical
storm will make it to southern California from the Pacific, but
it's extremely rare.  A few times the remnants of a typhoon have
crossed the Pacific and slammed the "Calisota" part of the
country, but by then they aren't true tropical systems, and have
made most or all of the transition to "extratropical."  It could
be argued that a few generations ago "hurricane" was popularly
used to refer to ANY windstorm, regardless of its tropical
origin.  Nowadays the word is, as far as I know, exclusively
used to refer to large circular weather systems originating in
the tropics, with winds over 74 mph.  ;)

I would say these meterologicaly anomalies are an example of
Barks writing whatever would make a good story at the time,
without worrying about specifics.  After all, in "Christmas on
Bear Mountain" the ducks bemoan the fact that there's no snow in
Duckburg for Christmas, while in just about every other holiday
story there is.  They also referred to living in Burbank in some
early stories, didn't they?  Barks wasn't going to let little
things like geography and science stand in the way of a good
story, was he?  ;)

Katie Sullivan
http://www.sullivanet.com/

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree