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How Are Storms Named?
How are storms named around the world and how does it differ?
Project ‘Name Our Storms’
It might surprise you to know that names for storms are chosen long before we ever know the storm is coming. The names for all storms for the entire year are selected and announced every September for the coming year. They are selected by the UK Met Office together with Met Éireann and the Dutch Weather Service from names suggested by the public as part of the project ‘Name Our Storms’.
The list is alphabetical with one name for each letter, alternating male and female. The letters Q, U, X, Y and Z are not used to keep our storm naming in line with the US National Hurricane Centre naming conventions.
In the US, they got to the end of the list of their names twice, once in 2005 and once in 2020. Now they have a supplemental list in case the number of storms exceeds the names chosen. In the US, tropical storm and hurricane name lists repeat every six years, save for where names are retired if a named storm is deadly or costly. For example, Dorian (from 2019), Laura, Eta and Iota have all recently been retired from hurricane name selection.
Back to project ‘Name our Storms’ in Europe, the names are chosen by popularity but also “ensuring the names reflect the culture and ethnicity of the UK, Ireland and…
