Our weather has taken a sudden shift toward winter this week, due to the arrival of a high-pressure system from Siberia, called a Hochdruckgebiet.

See, you get all sorts of advantages living in Europe, including being close enough to Siberia to get blasted by the cold weather sent down from there. How cool is that, eh?

Sorry, couldn’t resist that.

Anyway, there are a couple of things to note about a Hochdruckgebiet, or Hoch (which by itself just means “high”) for short. First, when I looked the term up in the German edition of Wikipedia, I discovered that here in Europe they have been assigning people-names to this kind of weather systems since 1954, just as in North America we name tropical storms or hurricanes. Until 1998, the storms only had female names, but since 1998, they have alternated between assigning male and female names. The current storm – which must be the third one of the season, since they start off the names with the letter “A” — is named “Cooper.” I don’t know if there’s a corporate (or other) sponsor for that name, but according to the Wikipedia entry, somehow sponsorship of a Hoch name is a possibility. Go figure.

Now, I tried to find information on these named European weather systems in the English Wikipedia, but unfortunately the corresponding English entry talks only about the meteorological properties of a Hoch, not about the naming system of them in Europe. So, you’ll have to trust me on that if you can’t read the German.

However, the English entry did provide me with the proper meteorological name for this weather phenomenon:  an Anticyclone. I have to say, I don’t remember hearing weathermen in the U.S. ever using that term. Then again, they don’t name a cyclone, anti- or not, in North America, do they? I’m not sure. So, why do they name them in Europe? I don’t know. I also don’t know why they name hurricanes and tropical storms in North America. My font of information on weather systems only goes so far.

I will leave you with one final naming-the-weather thought, though. While they don’t generally name winds or high pressure fronts in North American, they do call the wind Maria there … at least in song. (Note: the name in the song is pronounced [ma-ray-ah], even though it is properly spelled Maria, not Mariah).

I’m sure you’ve heard this song at least once in passing if you’re of a certain age, as many folk singers in the 1960s, including the Kingston Trio, recorded They Call the Wind Maria as a folk song. In fact, some people assumed it was an American folk song. But in fact it was written by  Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Lowe for their musical Paint Your Wagon. Links to YouTube versions can be found below:

Kingston Trio’s recording of They Call the Wind Maria

Broadway-style rendition – the clip is from the movie version of the musical

Ever since we learned about Cooper in my German class yesterday, that song has been running through my head, hence the title of this post. However, for  the record, I’m personally not singing Cooper’s praises.  Cooper has dropped our temps down to -12º C/ 10º F, with temps down to -20º C/ -4º F predicted for the coming days. Cooper also came with a strong wind, which means the wind chill temperatures are even lower, of course. Brrr.

Yes, I know. It’s winter when it’s supposed to be cold, and for many of you on the east coast in the U.S., our new lows here aren’t nearly as cold as it can get where you live.  But our current Hoch is certainly cold enough for me.  Whatever they want to call it.