The UK’s Met Office has announced a list of names chosen by members of the public for the coming winter’s storms.
On October 19 2015 the Met Office said on its website it had received thousands of storm names from the public via emails, Facebook and Twitter as part of a pilot project announced on September 8 2015 in partnership with its Irish counterpart Met Éireann.
The Met Office said the first storm would be named Abigail, followed by Barney and Clodagh. Any names beginning with Q, U, X, Y or Z have been avoided to “ensure we are in line with the US National Hurricane Centre naming convention”. The Met Office is keen to maintain consistency with storm naming in the North Atlantic.
The full list of winter storm names range from Frank and Vernon to Gertrude and Rhonda and the Met Office’s partnership with Met Éireann is reflected in several Irish names, such as Clodagh and Orla.
The Met Office said it had taken this storm naming project to the UK public in the hope “that naming storms will help raise awareness of severe weather and ensure greater safety of the public”.
