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Lord Cold-emort? Clearopathra? Wichita takes punny snowplow naming to the next level

The city has 79 snow plows, each with its own name—and you can watch them move around the city on a real-time map.

Meteorologist Kevin Lighty/Facebook

Wichita's snow plow map shows which plows are out and where they are in the city.

If you live somewhere that doesn't get snow, you may lament it or you may thank your lucky stars. The fluffy white stuff isn't everyone's cup of tea, for sure, and even those of us who like snowy winters can get tired of it once we've revelled in the peaceful beauty of the first few fresh snowfalls.

Having a sense of humor about the weather is one way people handle the winter without devolving into a miserable mess, and nowhere is this coping mechanism clearer than in the naming of snow plows. Over the past several years, more and more jurisdictions have made a game out of naming their street-clearing fleets. But Wichita, Kansas, and its 79 uniquely named plows are making extra waves through the dad-joke-lover crowd.

The snow plow names draw from movies, music, literature, historical and pop culture figures and more. A few of the best? Lord Cold-emort. Darth Blader. Snowba Fett. Peppy La Plow. Blizzard of Oz. Betty Whiteout. The Big LePlowski. William Scrape-speare. The Fast and the Flurriest.

And that's only a handful of them.

Wichita is one of many cities to name plows, but there's an additional element to its snow plow practices that has people roped in. Not only did Wichita name every one of its plows, but you can track them live on the city's Public Works website.

For some reason, that ability is delighting people everywhere. As someone who has never been to Wichita, do I care what streets are being plowed there at any given moment? Not even a little bit. But do I care to see where Plowy McPlowface, F. Salt Fitzgerald and Lil Snow Peep are plugging along, doing their important work for the people who live there? Apparently and inexplicably, yes I do.

Anthropomorphizing snow plows by naming them may be an objectively silly thing to do, but bringing joy to people's dreary winter days is a valuable service. Judging by people's reactions, that's exactly what Wichita is doing:

"Love this! This would make a great 1000 piece puzzle!"

"Plowabunga for the win!! That's awesome!"

"Whoever their PR person is deserves a raise or two."

"This is great way to make a sometimes thankless job more fun. Be careful out there Snow Funnies."

"Awe, almost makes me want to move to a snowy region of the country! ....ALMOST!"

"I live in Wichita so this obviously popped up… we all absolutely love the plows!!!! The names make us all smile and laugh."

Many cities have begun holding snow plow naming contests each year, and the names often come from school children—a great way to get kids creatively engaged with the civil servants of their community and to appreciate the workers who keep things running smoothly.

Want to know what all 79 names are? Here's the list of snow plows from the Wichita Public Works & Utilities page (where you can also check out the real-time map to see who's out and about):

Aaron Brrrr
Auntie Arctica
Baby Snowda
Betty WhiteOut
Blizzard of Oz
Blizzard Wizard
Bohemian Rhapsnowd
Brine and Dandy
Catch My Drift
Chill Bill
Chilly Dog
Clearing Present Danger
Clearopathra
Ctrl Salt Delete
Darth Blader
Don't Flurry Be Happy
Edgar Allen Snow
Edward Blizzardhands
EisenPlower
Every day I'm Shovelin
F. Salt Fitzgerald
Frost Responder
Great and Plowerful Oz
Henry David Thor-Snow
Hipplowpotomus
Ice Breaker
I Came, I Thaw, I Conquered
I Can Street Clearly Now
I Snow You Can do It
Ice Force One
Ice fought the Thaw and the Thaw Won
Ice of Life
Ice to See You
Ice-Stein Theory of Relativity
Icy-T
It's Snow Problem
License to Chill
Lil Snow Peep
Lord Cold-emort
Mission Implowsible
Mr. Plow
Mr. Sandman
No Business Like Snow Business
No More Mr. Ice Guy
Not Snow Fast
Only Have Ice for You
Ope, Just Gonna Plow Right Past Ya
Peppy La Plow
Plow Bunyan
Plowabunga
Plowasaurus Rex
Plower Ranger
Plowthagorean Theorem
Plowy McPlowface
Point of Snow Return
Sand and Deliver
Saltimus Brine
Shock and Thaw
Slush Puppy
Snow and Tell
Snow Diggity
Snow Force 1
Snow More Mr. Ice Guy
Snow Place Like Home
Snowba Fett
Snowbi One Kenobi
Snowbody Like You
Snow Worries
Sweet Caro-brine
Squall Bunyan
Thaw Enforcement
Wichi-Thawesome
The Big LePlowski
The Fast and the Flurriest
The Scrape Gatsby
To Brine Ownself Be True
William Scrape-speare
Wolfgang Amadeus Snowzart
You're Killin Me Squalls

Which are your faves?

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People are loving this giant panda happily rolling down a hill in the snow.

All it takes to get in a festive mood is a sprinkling of snow and a soft hill to sled — or even roll — down.

Just ask MeiXiang, an adorable 19-year-old giant panda.

GIF via The National Zoo.

A new video of MeiXiang playing in the snow is downright delightful.

Taken by the team at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C., where MeiXiang lives, the playful panda is seen gleefully running up and rolling down a snow-covered hill in her enclosure.

People on Twitter were swooning.

While zoos can carry a negative reputation among animal rights advocates — and justifiably so — MeiXiang's own story shows why there are pros and cons to life in captivity.

MeiXiang was born at a research and conservation center in China committed to protecting her species before she was moved to the U.S.

The Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute works closely with its counterparts in East Asia studying the behaviors, breeding patterns, and overall health of giant pandas — knowledge that can help grow wild populations.

Fortunately, efforts like theirs are paying off: between 2003 to 2013, the wild panda population rose by 17%.

Photo by Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images.

Don't fret about MeiXiang being out in the cold, either — giant pandas are native to the frosty mountains of Western China. They relish in a good snow day! In fact, they actually thrive when temperatures drop.

You keep having fun in your winter wonderland, MeiXiang.

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31 Days of Happiness Countdown: this guy's awesome job blowing up snow. (Day 4)

Hello and welcome to Day 4 of Upworthy's 31 Days of Happiness Countdown! Each day between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31, we're sharing stories we hope will bring joy, smiles, and laughter into our lives and yours. It's been a challenging year for a lot of us, so why not end it on a high note with a bit of happiness? Check back tomorrow for another installment!

The weird, invisible jobs that help keep society moving are fascinating. If you sat me down in front of a TV and told me I was going to watch a show about professional duck wranglers or fortune cookie writers, I'd tell you to go make popcorn. How do you get this kind of job? What is their day like? What do they talk about at the fortune cookie-writing watercooler? I want to know.

This video from The Seattle Times is like the epitome of that fascination. It's  a profile of John Stimberis, a Department of Transportation worker whose job is to help keep drivers safe by purposefully triggering avalanches with explosives.

Wait — how does that keep drivers safe, again? You'll just have to check it out.

Even if you already knew there were professional snow-bombing-avalanche-makers, the interview and details (like his little bike!) are so delightful. And there's something so fascinating, so calming, and so amazing about watching the snow go BOOM.

More days of happiness here:DAY 1 / DAY 2 / DAY 3 / [DAY 4] / DAY 5 / DAY 6 / DAY 7 / DAY 8 / DAY 9 / DAY 10 / DAY 11 / DAY 12 / DAY 13 / DAY 14 / DAY 15 / DAY 16 / DAY 17 / DAY 18 / DAY 19 / DAY 20 / DAY 21 / DAY 22 / DAY 23 / DAY 24 / DAY 25 / DAY 26 / DAY 27 / DAY 28 / DAY 29 / DAY 30 / DAY 31
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It snowed in the Sahara. Yes, it's gorgeous. No, it doesn't mean climate change is fake.

If the deserts miss the rain, they must REALLY be missing the snow. Until now, anyway.

The Sahara Desert, the largest hot desert in the world (Antartica and the Arctic are technically deserts too), doesn't get a lot of precipitation.

It's hot, it's dry, and it's vast; covering over 3 million square miles of land in northern Africa.

When it comes to rain, the Sahara only gets between half an inch and four inches of rain per year (that's not a lot!).

But snow, in the desert? That's unheard of ... right?

An amateur photographer just happened to be on hand to catch an honest-to-God snowfall in the Sahara Desert on Dec. 19, 2016.

All photos by Karim Bouchetata/Rex Features via AP Images.

The snow fell in a town called Ain Sefra in Algeria, much to the shock of its residents.

It's actually not the first time this region of the Sahara has been dusted with white powder. Snowfall hit the area all the way back in 1979.

There are also reports of light dustings elsewhere across the Sahara in 2005 and 2012.

Outside of these bizarre occurrences, there's no clear record of major snow having ever hit the area before.

(Though some high-altitude Sahara mountain ranges have been known to get snow, powder in the lower regions is extremely rare.)

The photographer, Karim Bouchetata, said on Facebook that the snow stayed for about a day but quickly melted away.

That leaves these incredible photographs as some of the only remaining evidence of an event that may not occur again for a decade or more. If ever.

Snow in the desert is a beautiful coincidence. A rare moment where dozens of weather factors come together perfectly.

What it isn't — just in case the thought crossed your mind — is any sort of proof that we shouldn't be worried about global warming.

"A cold day in the Sahara does not disprove global warming any more than a heat wave in December proves it," says Steven Stoll, a professor who teaches climate history at Fordham University. "No event stands alone."

It's getting hotter everywhere, Stoll says, and sometimes when that heat gets pushed around and distributed, it can lead to cooling in certain places. That may be the case in the Sahara.

But even if this once-a-decade-or-so event is ultimately completely random and meaningless, it sure is beautiful. And we're lucky a photographer was there to capture the mesmerizing results.

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