Everything you need to know as Met Office reveals storm names for this autumn and winter

With September upon us and the official onset of meteorological autumn, the Met Office has issued its full list of storm names for the coming season.

After a predominantly wet and gloomy July and August the city has been enjoying belated warm, sunny summer weather, but autumn is traditionally the season when our coastline can be ravaged by storms.

While last year was fairly benign in terms of autumn and winter storm activity, the previous year (2021/22) saw the city battered by five storms - Arwen, Barra, Malik, Corrie and Dudley - between November and the end of February.

Storm Arwen in particular wreaked havoc on the city when it struck on November 27, 2021, resulting in 600 reports of damage to property and 85 uprooted trees.

Storms are named in alphabetical order with the first three storms due to be named Agnes, Babet and Ciarán.

The Full List of Names

The storms are named in partnership between the Met Office, Met Éireann (Ireland) and The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

Not all the names may end up being used, with storm names allocated to weather systems when "they’re deemed to have the potential to cause medium or high impacts in the UK, Ireland or the Netherlands".

The Met Office website goes on to state "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 full list of storm names is

• Agnes
• Babet
• Ciaran
• Debi
• Elin
• Fergus
• Gerrit
• Henk
• Isha
• Jocelyn
• Kathleen
• Lilian
• Minnie
• Nicholas
• Olga
• Piet
• Regina
• Stuart
• Tamiko
• Vincent
• Walid

How are storm names chosen?

This year's Met Office name submissions have been chosen by a combination of public suggestions and recognition of people who have worked to help protect the public during periods of severe weather.

One of those to be honoured is Debi Garft, who recently retired as Senior Policy Officer in the Scottish Government Flooding Team.

Debi said: “It is important that we all take steps to protect ourselves, our family and property by preparing for extreme weather events."

Why do we name storms? 

This is the ninth year of naming storms, with the policy adopted to garner public attention and to help make people aware of the dangers.

Met Office Head of Situational Awareness Will Lang, who leads responses in times of severe weather, said: “We do it because it works. Naming storms helps to ease communication of severe weather and provides clarity when people could be impacted by the weather.

“This year, it’s great to be able to recognise the collaborative efforts of some of our partners across the UK with the inclusion of names from some partner organisations.

"Working across different agencies allows us to help as many people as possible be prepared for severe weather.”

The Environment Agency’s Water Resources Security of Supply Manager, Stuart Sampson, after whom one of the storms is to be named, added: “Our weather is a great conversation starter and giving a storm a name means we can all talk about an event with a clear and common understanding.

"Everyone knows what you mean by Hurricane Katrina for example, you know the magnitude and impacts it had on the USA.

"But if you said ‘the low pressured cyclone’ it would not resonate as much. By naming storms, this will help everyone be better prepared and in the conversation.”