President Donald Trump has handed down a directive from on high that the federal government is not to use the term “Lake Ontario” in documents and bulletins anymore, reflecting his executive order declaring the name of the easternmost Great Lake to be “Lake America” amid his trade standoff with Canada.
National Weather Service meteorologists in Buffalo, New York, however, came up with a clever act of malicious compliance.
As atmospheric scientist Matthew Cappucci flagged on X Tuesday, “The National Weather Service in Buffalo, New York oversees marine forecasts for the entire U.S. side of what, since 1641, has been known as Lake Ontario. But the National Weather Service can’t say ‘Lake Ontario’ anymore – per President Trump’s Executive Order 14422, it’s Lake America or nothing.”
“Today, the Buffalo office got a bit… creative… in referring to ‘our eastern Great Lake,’” he noted. “No directives were broken. The lake was never named.”
The bulletin in question stated, “Southerly flow continues ahead of a cold front that will cross the lakes Wednesday morning. This flow is in the 10-15kt range over Lake Erie and 10-20kt over our eastern Great Lake. The wind/wave forecast will likely necessitate a short-duration Small Craft Advisory from Mexico Bay to the St. Lawrence River. Winds shift more north-northwest and subside to under 10kt behind the cold front on Wednesday.”
A recent poll indicates that Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario, which has held that name for more than two centuries, before Canada even existed as a confederation, is overwhelmingly unpopular among Americans.
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