Bert, Kayleigh, and Naoise could soon be wreaking havoc in the UK, as they are among the names ready to be given to storms in the coming year.
The Met Office revealed this year’s list, which covers the 2024/2025 season starting in September to coincide with the beginning of autumn.
Britain started naming storms in 2015, though the practice has been going on much longer in the US.
It helps with communication about severe weather, allowing people to track the impact more easily and warn others.
Only last week, Storm Lilian hit the UK, which was itself the tail end of Hurricane Ernesto, bringing winds of over 70mph to northern parts of England and Wales.
So which names will be gracing our weather systems in months to come, and are any of them your name sake? Here is the full list of 21 upcoming storm names…
Ashley, Bert, Conall, Darragh, Eowyn, Floris, Gerben, Hugo, Izzy, James, Kayleigh, Lewis, Mavis, Naoise, Otje, Poppy, Rafi, Sayuri, Tilly, Vivienne and Wren.
In the outgoing year, there were twelve named storms and they were named in alphabetical order.
This year was the first time there were enough to get as far as the letter L, with Storm Lilian, so unless we have a particularly stormy year it’s unlikely we’ll get to see Storm Wren.
The list of names was released after a spell of sunny weather for the end of the summer holidays, with temperatures reaching 28°C across much of the south east.
The UK Met Office works with the Irish Met Eireann in Ireland and Dutch weather service KNMI to pick the names.
Among the UK choices are James, Lewis and Mavis, which are all in honour of figures from the Met Office’s 170-year history.
The forecaster said James is named after Group Captain James Stagg, who was the chief meteorologist responsible for advising General Dwight Eisenhower on the weather forecast for the D-Day landings.
Lewis is included because of Lewis Fry Richardson, who devised a theory to use maths and physics to make weather forecasts using computers.
Mavis is named after Mavis Hinds, who worked on the earliest Met Office computers.
Will Lang, who leads severe weather responses for the Met Office, said: ‘This year, as we celebrate our 170th birthday, it’s great to be able to honour those who have had an impact on our long history of pioneering weather and climate science services.’
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