Boulder, CO --

In a bold and unprecedented move, Boulder, Colo based startup Opensnow.com beats The Weather Channel by naming the season's first winter storm without first consulting the weather giant. The Weather Channel made headlines earlier this month by announcing a plan to name winter storms, with most names sourced from Roman or Greek culture.

But naming the first winter storm was not the only act of defiance of Opensnow.com. As CEO Joel Gratz explained, "We felt that naming storms in alphabetical order would simply perpetuate the anguish felt by many school children whose last names always got them called last in class. So we decided to base the names on personality rather than the alphabet. We're proud to announce that the Thursday/Friday/Saturday storm bringing snowfall to mountains in the western US is going to be named 'Xena Warrior Princess', and we chose this name based on the forthcoming storm's strength and independence, two traits shared by Xena.



When told of the news, long-time skier and Boulder resident Sari Levy expressed both anger and amusement. "I'm mad that this story isn't fake and that Opensnow.com actually named a storm Xena. I mean, I write fake news all the time at The Prairie Dog Blog and this totally could have been a popular fake headline. But, I will hand it to them. Starting the storm-naming-season with Xena is surely a good way to be mentioned in Techcrunch, which of course is the highlight of most startups since they usually fail before getting a second Techcrunch mention."

Neither The Weather Channel or Xena (the storm) would comment for this story, but a spokestorm for Xena did mention that the Warrior Princess appreciated the attention and would not let her fans down. The spokestorm even offered to describe Xena's plans to dump plenty of snow on the rocky mountains while simultaneously pissing rain on Kansas and other flatter states to the east.

To view the full forecast for Xena Warrior Princess, please see the Friday, October 12th Colorado Daily Snow.