UK storm names for 2024/25 as Met Office confirms Storm Darragh

Storm Darragh is continuing to batter the UK today, with yellow weather warnings for wind still in place across much of the country on Sunday.

Two people were confirmed to have died when trees fell onto their cars in Lancashire and the West Midlands, whilst thousands were left without power.

The Merseyside derby between Everton and Liverpool was also called off, whilst travel has been disrupted the length and breadth of the country on one of the busiest weekends in the run-up to Christmas.

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The storm, which left a trail of devastation in its path on Saturday, is the fourth to hit Britain this season. Just a couple of weeks ago, Storm Bert, and then Conall, brought devastating flooding and even snow.

Met Office’s list of storm names

The list – first launched in 2015 – generally runs from early September until late August the following year, coinciding with the beginning of autumn

Other names that made this year’s list include James, Lewis, Mavis – allinspired by 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 comes from 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.

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

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

Bert was put forward by KNMI after they asked the public to come up with names at an event.

When the list was launched in August, 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.’

Storm Darragh was indeed named by the Dutch weather service, with the Met Office issuing an advisory reading regarding the expected weather this weekend.

It read: ‘A deep low may cross England and Wales from Friday afternoon.

‘Around 15-25mm of rain may fall quite widely, more particularly across central, northern and western parts of England and Wales, with exposed higher ground in the north and west (particularly parts of Wales, which are at greatest risk of seeing flooding impacts) perhaps locally seeing closer to 50-70mm.’

A version of this article was originally published on August 29, 2024

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