Met Office logic

You may (or may not) have wondered why the Met Office insists on naming storms. Well we can tell you that it’s perfectly rational, in that they name storms simply because people take more notice of them then.

Think about it.

High winds and sleet across the country doesn’t have anywhere near the impact of Storm Dennis (or Beast from the East in 2018).

A peculiar British obsession

I think you could rightly assert that the weather is a curiously British obsession. News channels give weather updates every thirty minutes, websites often show weather data and you can ask Siri, Google or Alexa what the weather is like – to save you looking out of the window!

Perhaps it’s because the UK has such unpredictable weather patterns and there are micro climates across it.

The driest part of England, you may know, is in Essex; whilst the wettest is in Cumbria.

Parts of the west, including Scotland, sit in the Gulf Stream, bringing temperate winds whilst the east of England and Scotland has cooler winter temperatures – as does the East Midlands where we’re based.

Did you know that the Met Office sets the names?

For 2019-20 the list reads:

Atiyah, Brendan, Ciara, Dennis, Ellen, Francis, Gerda, Hugh, Iris, Jan, Kitty, Liam, Maura, Noah, Olivia, Piet, Róisín, Samir, Tara, Vince, Willow

21 names in alphabetical order

This year though and we quote:

In the UK, the Met Office – which keeps track of the weather – chooses the names but they’re asking for members of the public to help by suggesting new names.

They’ve started a campaign called #NameOurStorms and want people to get in touch to say what storms from September 2019 should be called.

It’s four years since they first asked people for ideas and that time they got more than 10,000 suggestions.

At Weatherwise Services, we would say that 2019 to 2020 was a relatively mild winter period. Storm Dennis attacked in February 2020 and that was with gale force winds and rain, with snow restricted to higher areas.

What is common though now in British winters is flooding.

Fishlake, Doncaster

You couldn’t miss the news items (pre Covid 19) about the devastating floods in Fishlake, South Yorkshire in November 2019

Storm Ciara in early February 2020 wreaked havoc with high winds and rain, leaving almost 700,000 homes without power; just a week later, Storm Dennis arrived killing 7 people.

Now we have no crystal ball for what the coming autumn and winter will deliver. We don’t know if the country will still be in lockdown or that work patterns will change to flexible working from home.

What we can say, with absolute assurance however, is that Weatherwise Services will continue to deliver exceptional gritting and brine spraying services from our central Leicestershire base.

By planning ahead, you can mitigate the worst excesses of winter by using our services.

Contact us today by email or phone.

You can even message us on Twitter or Instagram at any time.