The idea of naming individual storm events in the UK and Ireland only began with the 2015-16 storm season, though it has been the norm in North America since 1953.
Storm seasons in northern Europe run from early September to late August of the following year, and the storms are named in alphabetical order.
The first named storm was called Abigail (gail, geddit?!) in November 2015, the second was Storm Barney and there were a further nine more that storm year ending with Storm Katie on 25 March 2016. That record of 11 storms was superseded by the 2023-24 storm season, when 12 storms were named.
How are storms named?
The list of storm names is compiled through collaboration between the UK's Met Office, Met Eirrean (Ireland) and KNMI (the Dutch national weather forecasting service) and released at the start of each storm year. However, only 21 letters of the alphabet are used. The letters Q, U, X, Y and Z are not easily understood in many languages and therefore discarded.
It would take an unprecedented series of storms to use all the 21 letters, though in these times of ever-more extreme weather due to climate change, nothing can be ruled out.
Main image: storm at Dawlish in Devon
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