Kitty, Róisín, Ciara and Brendan – a storm by any other name

The winds of change have blown through the latest storm name list with Irish-sounding storms such as Kitty, Róisín, Ciara and Brendan joined by some more exotic ones, including Gerda and Piet.

The less than familiar names are as a result of the Dutch national forecaster's decision to join its counterparts in Ireland and the UK in identifying the worst of the winter's weather by name.

Some of the names on the new list were put forward by the general public over the course of the summer as part of the “name our storms” initiative, which is now in its fifth year.

Met Éireann and the UK Met Office received thousands of suggestions after which they sat down with Dutch forecasters and settled on a list made up of the most popular names put forward by the public as well as others reflecting the three nations' diversity.

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Only storms categorised as Status Orange or Red are to get names on the grounds that that they have the potential to cause a substantial impact.

The names go through the alphabet alternating between men and women, omitting names starting with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z in order to comply with US National Hurricane Centre naming conventions and to maintain consistency for official storm naming in the north Atlantic.

Those who have made the grade

Once a storm receives a name from any national met service, it hangs on to it even if it subsequently enters Irish waters. Two of the worst storms of recent years – Ophelia and Emma – were named by forecasters in the US and Portugal respectively.

The first storm of sufficient strength to earn a name in the weeks ahead will be known as Atiyah, after which Brendan will make an appearance followed by Ciara and then Dennis.

Other names to have made the grade are Liam, Maura, Olivia and Samir.

Willow, the last name on this year’s list, is unlikely to make an appearance unless the weather is particularly bad over the course of the seasons ahead.

"We are overwhelmed with the huge response to our public call for storm names. And please don't be too disappointed if your name hasn't been used as you will get another chance next year," said Met Éireann's head forecaster and chairwoman of the European Storm Naming Group Evelyn Cusack.