Storm Names Announced For 2017/18

The Met Office and Met Eireann have announced the storm names which will be used for the 2017/18 season. Like last year they'll consider naming a storm if a storm is likely to have medium or high impacts from wind, rain or snow. This'll mean that a storm will be named if an Amber or Red weather warning is expected to be issued for its impacts. 

After two years of running the storm naming scheme, the Met Office has found that it's helped with improving awareness of likely severe weather. 

Derrick Ryall, Head of Public Weather Services at the Met Office:

Last year was another successful pilot of the storm naming project and it’s great to be now making it operational. Naming storms has been proved to raise awareness of severe weather in the UK, crucially prompting people to take action to prevent harm to themselves or their property.
 

Last year was actually a fairly quiet year in terms of our weather, and in terms of the named storms with just 5 being named. That did include maybe the most talked about storm yet though - Storm Doris. The first season of the storm naming pilot was much busier though with 11 of them. 

Both of those years got going in November, this year could be a bit speedier off the mark, perhaps even as early as this weekend. It's not been named yet, but this low is one to watch and could become the first named storm of the season. It would be Aileen if that's the case.