I don’t know about you, but I’d feel pretty offended if a storm and I ever shared the same name; so I’m glad I’m not on the freshly released 2024/25 list.
Some names ― like Agnes, Betsy, Dennis, and Gilbert ― are off the hook, as the National Hurricane Centre and Central Pacific Hurricane Centre say they’re “retired Atlantic” options.
A name gets “retired,” the site says, when a “storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for obvious reasons of sensitivity.”
But how come they get their names in the first place?
According to a BBC Weather clip shared on X, “each storm will be named alphabetically, but if you’re a Mavis, Poppy, or Wren [three later names on the 2024/25 list], it’s worth noting that we haven’t got past the letter ‘L’ since we started doing this in 2015.”
That means we haven’t had more than 12 storms (the number the letter takes in the alphabet) that needed to be named since then.
“Like with naming hurricanes, the letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z are not used,” the BBC added.
UK storms are named by a combination of the Met Office and Irish (Met Éireann) and Dutch (KNMI) weather services.
“Met Office contributions to the list include submissions from the public and names of significant people from our 170-year history,” the UK weather service said on their site.
Only storms that are expected to have a medium or high impact get named.
“Wind is the primary consideration for naming a storm, but additional impacts from rain or snow will also be considered in the naming process,” the Met shared.
The naming period starts in late August or early September and applies until the same time the next year. That’s because storm risk starts to rise in late summer.
Met Office Head of Situational Awareness Will Lang said, “Naming storms helps to make communication of severe weather easier and provides clarity when people could be impacted by the weather.”
You’ll notice Q, U, X, and Y are off the menu as stated by the BBC (I’ve never felt so jealous of a Quentin...)
