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As Tropical Storm Gaston intensifies, so do Twitter's 'Beauty and the Beast' jokes

No one storms like Gaston.

Nicole Gallucci

on August 23, 2016

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

It's truly a tale as old as time.

As another tropical storm flares up, the inevitable flurry of tweets mocking its name makes its way into our lives. This week, Twitter users are deriving their latest weather-related meme inspiration from Tropical Storm Gaston.

The seventh tropical storm of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, which formed off the African coast on Monday afternoon, just so happens to share a name with the memorably narcissistic Beauty and the Beast character, Gaston, and social media has taken full advantage of the circumstances.

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According to AccuWeather Hurricane Expert, Dan Kottlowski, Tropical Storm Gaston will transform into a hurricane by the name of Hermine and head out to sea late Tuesday.

"Gaston will become a hurricane and could become the first major hurricane of the season in the Atlantic Ocean," Kottlowski said. Should Gaston's path continue as expected, the storm would no longer pose an immediate threat to land.

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As Tropical Storm Gaston has grown stronger, so have the internet's comical references to Gaston of Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

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In case you're wondering how we've come to call storms by names like Gaston, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) explained that people began referring to tropical storms and hurricanes by short, easily remembered names in the early 1950s. It was due to the realization that tracking them by year and in the order in which they occurred was far too confusing.

According to the NOAA, "For Atlantic hurricanes, there is a list of male and female names which are used on a six-year rotation. The only time that there is a change is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate."

The modern-day naming system is administered by the World Meteorological Organization, an arm of the United Nations.

Here's hoping we utilize some more Disney-themed names in the future.

Topics Disney X/Twitter

Nicole Gallucci

Nicole is a Senior Editor at Mashable. She primarily covers entertainment and digital culture trends, and in her free time she can be found watching TV, sending voice notes, or going viral on Twitter for admiring knitwear. You can follow her on Twitter @nicolemichele5.