Met Office storm names 2019 and 2020: full list for Britain and Ireland

The Name our Storms campaign has helped raise awareness of the potential impacts of severe weather in Britain and Ireland before it hits and earlier this summer, the Met Office and Met Éireann received thousands of suggestions from the public after asking people to send in ideas for future storm names.

The list for 2019-20 has been compiled from these suggestions.

The full list

Atiyah

Brendan

Ciara

Dennis

Ellen

Francis

Gerda

Hugh

Iris

Jan

Kitty

Liam

Maura

Noah

Olivia

Piet

Róisín

Samir

Tara

Vince

Willow

Why are some letters missing?

The letters Q, U, Y, Z and X are not included in this list to ensure that it is in line with the US National Hurricane Centre naming convention and will maintain consistency for national storm naming in the North Atlantic.

The Met Office explains that the criteria they use for naming storms is based on their National Severe Weather Warnings service, which is based on a combination of both the impact the weather may have, and the likelihood of those impacts occurring.

A storm will be named when it has the potential to cause an amber or red warning, but other weather types will also be considered - specifically rain, if its impact could lead to flooding as advised by the Environment Agency, SEPA and Natural Resources Wales flood warnings.

Derrick Ryall, Associate Director of Public Weather Service at the Met Office said, “We were delighted with the public response to our call for names earlier this year and are really pleased storm naming has been embraced by press, media and public to better communicate the potential impacts of severe weather so people are better prepared, when it matters.”