The name Gulf of America will soon become formally adopted into the National Weather Service’s nautical charts, online maps, weather products and websites, a NOAA spokesperson confirmed Thursday, marking a major shift in the way mariners, meteorologists, educators and others refer to the nation’s third-largest saltwater ocean.
“Work is underway to update naming conventions as quickly as possible,” spokesperson Scott Smullen said in an email.
He said NOAA would not grant an interview with an official overseeing the name change. Nor did he answer additional emailed questions about how the name change will be integrated into the weather service’s forecasting operation and dissemination of information to the public.
While President Donald Trump’s order renaming the Gulf of Mexico has been met with various degrees of acceptance, and even became subject to jokes and memes, multiple agencies are now beginning to face the realities of integrating the name change into daily operations.
