Met Office To Name Storms
By Paul Homewood
h/t 1saveenergy
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2015/name-our-storms
There has been a trend in the last year or two for storms hitting the UK to be given unofficial names. After all it helps sell papers, and if hurricanes are given names, why not gales?
Now the Met Office want to make it official:
The Met Office and Met Eireann have announced a pilot project to name wind storms that are expected to affect the UK and Ireland.
As the UK and Ireland’s National Met Services, the Met Office and Met Éireann operate to maintain public safety through severe weather warnings and forecasts. Working together, it is hoped that naming storms will help raise awareness of severe weather and ensure greater safety of the public.
In recent years the naming of wind storms that affected Ireland and the United Kingdom (such as the ‘St Jude’s Day’ storm) has highlighted the benefits of establishing a formal system for the naming of mid-latitude storms. As storms moving in from the Atlantic often first make landfall on our shores, Met Éireann and the Met Office will be naming severe storms through the autumn and winter 2015/16.
Derrick Ryall, Head of the Public Weather Service at the Met Office, said: "The aim of this pilot is to provide a single authoritative naming system for the storms that affect UK and Ireland.
"We have seen how naming storms elsewhere in the world raises awareness of severe weather before it strikes. We hope that naming storms in line with the official severe weather warnings here will do the same and ensure everyone can keep themselves, their property and businesses safe and protected at times of severe weather."
A storm will be named when it is deemed to have the potential to cause ‘medium’ or ‘high’ wind impacts on the UK and/or Ireland, i.e. if a yellow, amber or red warning for wind has been issued by Met Éireann and/or the National Severe Weather Warnings (NSWWS).
Raise awareness of severe weather? Yes, I am quite sure this is the real purpose. How long will it take before people start to think that we never used to have all these storms before?
There is, in any event, a real possibility that giving names to every storm that may or not hit the UK will actually reduce people’s attention, a bit like crying wolf. Such warnings really need to be reserved for potentially more severe events.
In the meantime, I offer my suggestion for the first name:
IN A TEACUP!!
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
This would appear to be anticyclonophobic! Why not name quiet sunny days and maybe fogs while we’re at it
Hurricane Harrabin
Cyclone Slingo
PERFECT!
Puff of warm air Lucas.
Deep depression, Mann !
Short period of dry… Flannery.
Love the names! The wizards of meteorology have began to name show storms 2 years ago and now rain events crossing the US. I propose “Mann Monsoons” for the very wet early summer we had–and he slithers about at Penn State.
Mild Squall “Dave” crawling up from the South after his European negotiations!
“Nearly 2000 thunderstorm cells are estimated to be present over the planet at any given time. It is estimated that globally there are 16 million thunderstorms each year.”
http://www.sky-fire.tv/index.cgi/thunderstorms.html
Naming them all should keep about 50,000 members of Greenpeace in useful fulltime employment
The Germans are naming Low and High pressure systems for decades. The UK and Germany are currently under the influence of the high pressure system called Lajana :
list of 2015 Low names : http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/wetterpate/tief/
list of 2015 High names : http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/wetterpate/hoch/
It is a bad idea, that also DMI has taken up. Better call them with month and year, to have the history present. Not all from Ikea is good.
Just name them all Slingo followed by a number.
“Today it’s will be Slingoing it down”
“With later Slingos especially in the South”
Raising awarness is good, I agree with that. I remember 2005, when people claimed that Katrina took them by surprise. And other major hurricanes did that also…..But I think that it’s much more important to analyse what’s the trigger for those extreme weather phenomenons, don’t you think? I know that oceans play the most important role, that oceans make climate, but I wonder what have we done to influence oceans and to “help” producing these severe storms…..
Why not name them something more terrifying? perhaps inspired by Death Metal bands? I’m thinking Anthrax, or woebetide or bloodfart. That would certainly raise awareness and soften up the public to more taxation.
I agree. A storm SHOULD be terrifying. According to Wikipedia, Abigail is from Hebrew and means “my father’s joy”. What’s so joyous about ‘potential disruption’? I do like your suggestion of woebetide. Especially for coastal areas!
Caleb at Sunrise’s Swansong names stuff for instance the North Pole Camera is “Faboo”, and posts interesting things for instance WHO IS SMARTER? SCIENTISTS OR WHALES?. Worth a visit every few days.