Winter Storm Naming In The United Kingdom And Ireland

The United Kingdom's Met Office, in collaboration with its Irish counterpart Met Éireann and, since 2019, its Dutch counterpart the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), decided to introduce a storm naming system following the St Jude's day storm on 27–28 October 2013 which caused 17 deaths in Europe and the 2013–14 Atlantic winter storms in Europe to give a single, authoritative naming system to prevent confusion with the media and public using different names for the same storms.

The first windstorm to be named was Abigail on 10 November 2015.

In 2019 the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) decided to adopt the same naming system and since then submits a list of suggested names. The definitive list is combined from suggestions from the three countries.

Reasoning

The objectives behind the decision were to:
* Raise awareness of the dangers of storms
* Ensure greater public safety
* Avoid confusion if the name of the remnant of a tropical storm is used, for instance “the ex-hurricane Joaquin that reached Europe earlier this month.”
* Involve the public
* Operate with a common cross border system

The names will be used on predicted large-scale, cyclonic windstorms with potential for significant land-based wind impacts. This may result in names being allocated to events that are below the traditional Beaufort scale definition of a storm.

Designation

A storm will be named when it is deemed able to have a "substantial" impact on the UK or Ireland. Met Éireann names any storm which triggers a status Orange or Red weather warning focusing on wind, though consideration was also given to rain and snow events in 2016–17. The basis for such as outlined on their weather warning service are mean wind speeds in excess of or gusts over . Similarly, the Met Office name storms that have the potential to cause medium (Amber) or high (Red) impacts to the UK. It describes the wind strength relative to observations such as "falling trees or tiles and other items like garden furniture being blown around and even a number of properties left without electrical power."

Status Amber or Status Red weather warnings will be applied to named storms.

In the case of ex-tropical storms or hurricanes, the original name allocated by the US National Hurricane Center in Miami will continue to be used. This happened when Ex-Hurricane Ophelia hit Ireland and Britain in October 2017, although Brian was the next scheduled name on the list.

The less common letters Q, U, X, Y and Z are never used, in keeping with the US hurricane warning system.

In September 2015, the two Met offices consulted the public via a "''Name our storms''" campaign and chose the first batch of names.

Instances

Used names are marked in grey.

Germany

The oldest naming system in Europe was developed by Karla Wege, a student at the Free University of Berlin's meteorological institute, who suggested that names should be assigned to all areas of low and high pressure that influenced the weather of Central Europe. The university subsequently started to name every area of high or low pressure within its weather forecasts, from a list of 260 male and 260 female names submitted by its students. The female names were assigned to areas of low pressure while male names were assigned to areas of high pressure. The names were subsequently exclusively used by Berlin's media until February 1990, after which the German media started to commonly use the names, however, they were not officially approved by the German Meteorological Service Deutscher Wetterdienst. The DWD subsequently banned the usage of the names by their offices during July 1991, after complaints had poured in about the naming system. However, the order was leaked to the German press agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, who ran it as its lead weather story. Germany's ZDF television channel subsequently ran a phone in poll on 17 July 1991 and claimed that 72% of the 40,000 responses favoured keeping the names. This made the DWD pause and think about the naming system and these days the DWD accept the naming system and request that it is maintained. During 1998 a debate started about if it was discrimination to name areas of high pressure with male names and the areas of low pressure with female names. The issue was subsequently resolved by alternating male and female names each year. In November 2002 the "Adopt-a-Vortex" scheme was started, which allowed members of the public or companies to buy naming rights for a letter chosen by the buyer, that are then assigned alphabetically to high and low pressure areas in Europe during each year.

Naming history

As a result, a task force of the Working Group for the Cooperation between European Forecasters (WGCEF) started to develop a unified naming scheme for storms causing significant weather in Europe. The main objective of this project was to develop a project that would be operated by all of the European national meteorological services and used by the media as well as other agencies such as civil protection.

Should a system move from one area to another then it will retain the name it was assigned by the original weather service.

Western Group

During September 2015, the United Kingdom's Met Office and Ireland's Met Éireann announced a 2-year pilot project, to name weather systems that were expected to impact either the UK or Ireland. In order to decide which names were going to be used, members of the public were invited to submit names to the forecasters via social media, which was welcomed with enthusiasm as thousands of names were suggested before they were reviewed by both centres. The first list of names was compiled and issued during October 2015, with any names appearing on the List of retired Atlantic hurricane names or starting with the letters Q, U, X, Y, Z omitted. It was also decided that any post-tropical cyclones that impacted Europe would retain its name and be referred to as "ex-hurricane". Over the next few months, a total of eleven storms were assigned a name whenever a yellow, amber or red warning for wind was issued by either agency. The project also helped Met Éireann communicate the impacts of several systems, which impacted Ireland in quick succession over the 2015-16 Christmas and New Year period. After the season, it was determined that the project was a success, as the names had been adopted and accepted by the public, the media and emergency responders. As a result, it was decided to expand the naming scheme to include other weather types such as rain and snow, if its impact could lead to significant flooding as advised by their partner agencies.

Ahead of the 2019-20 winter, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) decided to join the scheme and name weather systems, in order to raise awareness of dangerous weather before it impacted the country. They decided to name a system if it was forecast to produce significant wind gusts over the country and result in the issuance of an orange or red weather warning.

Southwestern group

Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain and Portugal

During 2017, encouraged by the success of the UKMO and Met Éireann naming scheme, the meteorological services of France, Portugal and Spain, decided to set up their own naming scheme. The naming scheme was discussed throughout the year by email, before it was finalised in various web-conferences during the Autumn. It was decided that a system within the Atlantic Ocean or western Mediterranean Sea would be named if it was expected to cause an orange or red wind warning in either France, Spain or Portugal.

Northern group

Denmark, Sweden and Norway

During September 2013, the Danish media used 3 different names that had originated in Britain, Germany and Sweden to describe the St. Jude storm. As a result, this created confusion within Denmark as the public thought that three separate depressions, were impacting the country rather than a single system. During the aftermath of the system, the then minister responsible for the Danish Meteorological Institute Martin Lidegaard, named the system Allan and ordered the DMI to name storms affecting Denmark in the future. During the course of that winter, it became clear that not having a single naming system for significant weather in Europe, was causing confusion as the media used names from different schemes to describe the same storms.

Central Mediterranean group

Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Malta

Southeastern Mediterranean group

In January 2017, the National Observatory of Athens (NOA) started to name weather systems, that would be expected to cause significant social and economic consequences in Greece. In order to do this, the NOA developed a number of criteria that took into account, what the meteorological hazard was as well as the size of the affected area and population at risk.

Central

*Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Czech republic, Slovakia, Hungary.

See also

* Winter storm naming in the United States
* Tropical cyclone naming
* Atlantic hurricane season
* European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
* European windstorm

References

{{Reflist

External links

Met Office UK Storm Centre

Met Éireann

About KNMI

Met Office
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Winter weather events in the United Kingdom
Winter weather events in Ireland