DO YOU KNOW anyone with a bit of a stormy personality? Or maybe someone who’s a bit more chill? If so, Met Éireann have just the job for you.
Today, the national forecaster has launched an appeal for help naming this year’s winter storms – and they want your help.
They’ve joined forces with the UK Met Office for the fifth year for the ‘Name our Storms’ scheme, which aims to raise awareness of severe weather before it strikes.
A storm warrants a name when it’s of a scale that Met Éireann or the Met Office will issue an orange or red weather warning.
Every year, the names are chosen based on submissions by the public, and memorable weather events in recent years include Storm Ophelia, Storm Emma and Storm Ali
Storms are named in alphabetical order in the sequence they occur, with each storm alternate between the first letter of a male name and a female name, following the pattern established by the US National Hurricane Center in the 1970s.
However, storms beginning with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z won’t be used in order to comply with international storm naming conventions.
Last year, the first storm was male and named Ali, and the second storm was female and named Bronagh.
This alternation switches every year, so this winter, the first storm will be female, so could be Storm Anne, and the second one will be male, so could be Storm Brendan.
However, both forecasters will avoid names with ‘resonance’ in the weather world, like ‘Charlie’ or ‘Katrina’, and famous (and infamous) names will be avoided too – so there’ll be no Storm Boris or Storm Leo.
To send your suggestion, you can use the hashtag #IrishStormNames on Twitter, email Met Éireann at stormnames@met.ie or write to Evelyn Cusack, Met Éireann, Glasnevin Hill, Dublin 9.
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