Full list of UK storm names for 2024/2025 revealed as Storm Boris batters Europe

Children brave the wind and sea spray on Crosby Beach promenade in Liverpool during Storm Lilian last week (Picture: Getty)

Bert, Kayleigh, and Naoise could soon be wreaking havoc in the UK, as they are among the names ready to be given to storms in the coming year.

The Met Office revealed this year’s list, which covers the 2024/2025 season starting in September to coincide with the beginning of autumn.

Britain started naming storms in 2015, though the practice has been going on much longer in the US.

It helps with communication about severe weather, allowing people to track the impact more easily and warn others.

Earlier this summer Storm Lilian hit the UK, which was itself the tail end of Hurricane Ernesto, bringing winds of over 70mph to northern parts of England and Wales.

So which names will be gracing our weather systems in months to come, and are any of them your name sake? Here is the full list of 21 upcoming storm names…

Traffic building up during Storm Nelson in Cheshire in March (Picture: Getty)

We had some nice weather too though: This was Bournemouth Beach in Dorset yesterday (Picture: BNPS)

Ashley, Bert, Conall, Darragh, Eowyn, Floris, Gerben, Hugo, Izzy, James, Kayleigh, Lewis, Mavis, Naoise, Otje, Poppy, Rafi, Sayuri, Tilly, Vivienne and Wren.

In the outgoing year, there were twelve named storms and they were named in alphabetical order.

This year was the first time there were enough to get as far as the letter L, with Storm Lilian, so unless we have a particularly stormy year it’s unlikely we’ll get to see Storm Wren.

The list of names was released after a spell of sunny weather for the end of the summer holidays, with temperatures reaching 28°C across much of the south east.

The UK Met Office works with the Irish Met Eireann in Ireland and Dutch weather service KNMI to pick the names.

Among the UK choices are James, Lewis and Mavis, which are all in honour of figures from the Met Office’s 170-year history.

The forecaster said James is named after Group Captain James Stagg, who was the chief meteorologist responsible for advising General Dwight Eisenhower on the weather forecast for the D-Day landings.

Lewis is included because of Lewis Fry Richardson, who devised a theory to use maths and physics to make weather forecasts using computers.

Mavis is named after Mavis Hinds, who worked on the earliest Met Office computers.

Will Lang, who leads severe weather responses for the Met Office, said: ‘This year, as we celebrate our 170th birthday, it’s great to be able to honour those who have had an impact on our long history of pioneering weather and climate science services.’

Why is Storm Boris not in the list?

Storm Boris is currently rampaging through Europe – but why isn’t it called Storm Bert?

The answer to this is pretty simple: the storm isn’t called Bert because it wasn’t named by the UK Met Office.

Instead, the storm was named by Italy’s Servizio Meteorologico, who use a different naming list to us in the UK.

Italy is part of the central Mediterranean groups of countries, whose meteorological services decide together how to name storms which are likely to impact their area.

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The UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands form a group of countries who name their own storms.

So quite simply, seeing as Storm Boris emerged in the Mediterranean area, and is unlikely to have much of an impact on the UK, there was no need for the UK Met Office to name it.

Better luck next time, Bert!

This article was originally published on August 29, 2024

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