The National Weather Service will be using the name “Lake of America” in forecasts and warnings from now on, replacing its former name which was “Lake Ontario.” The Great Lake, located to the west of New York State, is often home to lake effect snows in the winter along with all the advisories that come from it. While places do officially change their name from time to time, some meteorologists hope they won’t receive threats or harassment when they relay weather information with the new official name.

In a memo released today by the National Weather Service (NWS)  headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, they wrote, “NWS is in the process of implementing Executive Order 144422, Honoring the American History of the Great Lakes and Renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.” The NWS said work is underway to update naming conventions “as quickly as possible: on online maps, weather products, websites, and other materials across the National Weather Service. They add, “Caution will be exercised to avoid disruptions to operations.”

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14172 known as “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness”.  Among other actions, that Executive Order required the Secretary of the Interior, acting pursuant to 43 U.S.C. 364 through 364f, to “take all appropriate actions to rename as the ‘Gulf of America’ the U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the State of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba in the area formerly named as the Gulf of Mexico.”

 

The Board of Geographic Names which is responsible for making names of places official, completed their efforts to update their systems to reflect the new name. Since then, private sector and government agencies have been busy to update their systems to do the same.

Meteorologist James Spann, a broadcast meteorologist and host of the weather-related “WeatherBrains” podcast, says he was attacked online because he referred to the body of water south of Alabama by its proper name.

Spann took to X to explain the confrontation he faced; he wrote, “Earlier this morning, I posted the tropical weather outlook from the National Hurricane Center, which referred to the “Gulf of America”. He said he ” immediately received some nasty messages from people calling me everything from some type of `phobe’ to a `racist’.”

“In an ocean of mindless intolerant political extremists that are not capable of critical thinking, they are always looking for a reason to attack someone, I guess this isn’t surprising,” added Spann.

Spann is the Chief Meteorologist for ABC 33/40 (WBMA-LD), the ABC affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama. Spann has been with the station since 1996. In 2006, he started hosting the weekly weather podcast “WeatherBrains.”  In 2025, he also founded the “Alabama Weather Network” which provides weather coverage for the entire state of Alabama. He holds an AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist seal.

Spann said that during last hurricane season that he made the mistake “of calling it the `Gulf of Mexico’, and was quick called a `libtard’ and `communist’.”

The dust-up with calling the Gulf of America by its proper name isn’t the first time Spann has encountered online vitriol. In 2024, Spann attempted to debunk misinformation being spread online about Hurricane Milton but shared his frustration over a “society full of hate, anger, rage, and the inability to think clearly.”

When Spann shared a link to a FEMA page which debunked rumors around Hurricane Helene, he encountered additional hostility.

“I pass along information from officials with zero comment. I have no interest in politics. But the threats I have received from posting this are not good. Some I turned in. Some of the most hateful messages I have received come from people with Bible verses all over their profile. It is clear that we live in a society full of hate, anger, rage, and the inability to think critically. It has been very tough today, and all I do is pass along information. If you hate me, that is fine, but you might want to pull down those verses and your church affiliation. It isn’t a good look.”

President Trump signed the executive order on Lake America as part of an escalation of a trade war and collapsed economic negotiations with Canada.  The action aligns with Trump’s “America First” agenda in which  he uses symbolic place-naming to promote America’s position in the hemisphere.

Apple Maps and Google have already adopted the new name; broadcast, online, and print meteorologists will now do the same with the NWS adopting the change.