Look out for Storm Antoni which will be the first storm to batter the region this autumn. The UK Met Office has revealed its list of storm names for 2022-2023 and Antoni is number one.
The names have been volunteered by the public and the UK Met Office has teamed up with The Irish Meteorological Service and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in deciding which made the list.
Maybe that's why Wouter, the Dutch version of Walter, is the last storm name on the list which also includes Val, Betty and Daisy. And according to Wikipedia, although Antoni is mostly regarded as a Latin male name, in some places it is a variant of a female name - meaning the first storm of the year could be considered non binary.
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The USA has been naming storms since the 1950's but we, in the UK, only started to follow suit with adopting the same idea in 2014. The first storm named in the UK was Abigail which hit the country in November 2015.
Only storms given an amber or red warning, which are big enough to cause significant damage, are given names. However if a storm for example starts in the US and comes towards the UK, the name given by the National Weather Service in the US will remain.
But they will have to be strong to beat Eunice which prompted emergency services in Avon and Somerset to declare a "major incident" in February this year. Bristol and coastal regions were hit by wind gusts of up to 90mph as Storm Eunice swept up the Severn Estuary. Schools, libraries, and many tourist attractions closed and buses stopped running after the Met Office warned it would be severe.
The full list of names confirmed by the Met Office for storms in 2022/23, released yesterday (September 1), is as follows:
- Antoni
- Betty
- Cillian
- Daisy
- Elliot
- Fleur
- Glen
- Hendrika
- Íde
- Johanna
- Khalid
- Loes
- Mark
- Nelly
- Owain
- Priya
- Ruadhán
- Sam
- Tobias
- Val
- Wouter
Why storms get named
The Met Office's official reasoning on when and why storms are named says: "Storms are named when they could cause ‘medium’ or ‘high’ impacts in one of the partner countries and help provide consistent, authoritative messaging in times of severe weather.
"For Storm Eunice, which was the strongest storm to impact England and Wales since February 2014, 95% of people within the red warning area found the warning useful, while National Highways reported 21% less traffic on the roads in England on 18 February as people amended plans to stay safe during impactful storms.
"If a storm is named by a different storm naming group and impacts the UK, the given name will be used in communications, as occurred with Storm Malik in January this year. In addition, if the remnants of a hurricane has moved across the Atlantic to impact UK weather, this would be referred to as an ex-hurricane with its previously given name."
According to Wikipedia, in Spain Antoni is a Catalan name for boys and is a variant of the male names Anton and Antonio. As a Slovene name it is a variant of the male names Anton, Antonij and the female name Antonija. In Poland it is used for boys but listed as a variant of the female names Antonia and Antonina.
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