Storm names for 2017-18 announced by Met Office

The Met Office and Met Éireann announce the storm names for the 2017-18 season. The first storm of the year will be female and will be named ‘Aileen’, the gender of the first storm alternates each year and follows Angus in the 2016-17 season.

Surveys conducted after named storms in 2016/17 have shown further increases in awareness and action taken in response to people hearing of a named storm. Storm Doris for example achieved an 89% awareness score with 94% of those responders finding the severe weather warning useful. 82% of people that took action ahead of Storm Doris felt they were right to do so.

Derrick Ryall, Head of Public Weather Services at the Met Office, said: “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.”

Gerald Fleming, Head of Forecasting at Met Éireann, said: "Last winter was a very quiet one weather-wise and we only worked our way through five named storms, from Angus to Ewan. While it is too early to say whether the coming winter will be a stormy one or a quiet one we are prepared with a whole new set of 21 names for whatever nature may throw at us."

The names for the next year have once again been compiled using suggestions submitted by the public combined with names proposed to Met Éireann. As in previous years, Q; U; X; Y and Z will not be used to comply with international storm naming conventions.