The practice of naming Hurricanes has always struck me as a being a little incongruous. Take Hurricane Katrina, for example. 'She' was a devastating Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that smashed into New Orleans in 2005, resulting in 1,836 fatalities and damage estimated between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion. Katrina seems much too nice a name for something so deadly and indiscriminate, doesn't it? Surely it should have been named after some hellish demon or powerful god like Beelzebub or Lucifer or Shiva or Thor? When it comes to naming hurricanes, Cindy, Harold, Nigel and Whitney all seem just a bit too ... nice (yes, they were real 2023 hurricane names - see here).
But now climate change means that we are starting to experience more frequent severe weather here in the UK. Storms are becoming increasingly common and we've started to name them too. At time of writing this, I can see that it is a very blustery day outside because we're at the tail end of the most recently named storm.
But what name do I use?
Because it turns out that there is some argument over this.
The UK Met Office has released this list of storm names for 2023/2024. Note that, in keeping with hurricane tradition, they alphabetically alternate between male and female names:
However ... the current storm that is causing high winds in the UK seems to have several names. I've seen it as Gerrit but I've also seen it as Pia. Why?
It turns out that (like so many things) there is no international agreement on naming storms. There are several 'Naming Groups' around Europe which issue storm name lists. The UK Met Office, Irish Met Eireann and Dutch KNMI are in one group, the Western Group. They named Gerrit. But Pia was the name given by the Northern Group (Norway, Sweden and Denmark). There is also a Southwestern Naming group (Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Luxembourg, a Central Group (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), a Central Mediterranean Group (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Malta) and an Eastern Mediterranean Group (Greece, Cyprus and Israel).
However, Gerrit/Pia started in one naming region and then travelled into ours. And that's where the confusion lies.
When a hurricane begins to slow and becomes a storm it retains its hurricane name. So if Hurricane Ophelia, for example, formed over the Atlantic but then headed northwest to reach the British Isles as a post-tropical cyclone, it would still be known as Ophelia (or sometimes ex-Ophelia). This can mean that out list of storm names gets out of sequence alphabetically.
If the same rule is applied to storms, then we are currently experiencing Storm Pia, which started in the Northern Group but then shifted to the Western Group. Technically it is still Pia and the UK Met Office has not yet allocated Gerrit.
(screengrabbed 22/12/23 from the Met Office)
You might remember Storm Otto that hit the UK in February last year and caused travel disruption for NE Britain. It was named by the Danish Met Institute. And in April 2023 we experienced Storm Noa (named by Meteo France) resulting in huge waves and coastal damage, power outages and high winds to south Wales, southwest England. It also closed the Severn Bridge . In those cases, we retained the original names.
So there you go. This is Storm Pia.
You can tell I used to be a QI elf - one of the TV shows researcher/writers - can't you?
I just need to know stuff.
_________________________________________
Footnote:
Storm Gerrit was officially named on Tuesday 26th December. It blasted the whole of the UK but the strongest efects were felt in Scotland and northern England. Trains across much of Scotland ground to a halt on Wednesday and a major incident was declared in Greater Manchester after a supercell thunderstorm and localised tornado damaged around 100 properties, tearing roofs and chimneys from homes and smashing windows.
But climate change isn't real is it? Ask the politicians.
Sigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment