Names for 2017 storm systems are revealed

Irish girl’s name Oisin also appears – although the Met Office has thoughtfully included a guide to its pronounciation (‘Oh-sheen’).

Storms can blow in from any direction and so, it seems, do the names chosen for them by the Met Office.

The Met Office launched the “Name Our Storms” project in 2015 in the hope that it would raise awareness of severe weather.

The names selected for 2016-17 have been whittled down from thousandsof suggestions entered by the public.

Emma Sharples said: “Next week will see deeper Atlantic systems coming in, and although nothing severe is showing at the moment, if a storm merits being named, we’ll bring the start of the naming period forward from October 1”.

The Met Office began naming storms previous year in the hope that people would take them more seriously.

Every major storm over the next 12 months, starting in October, will be named according to the list, which is in alphabetical order.

Looming bad weather will be classed as a storm when it has the potential to trigger an amber “be prepared” or red “take action” warning.

This was shown when the scheme got underway with Storm Abigail in November the names were quickly adopted by the public, the media, our partners and responder organisations.

The Met Office added its naming system could soon be expanded include different kinds of weather.

Gerald Fleming, Head of Forecasting at Met Éireann said: “The naming helped us to clearly distinguish between them, and delineate their likely impacts”.

The storm names due to be assigned for 2016/2017 are: Angus, Barbara, Conor, Doris, Ewan, Fleur, Gabriel, Holly, Ivor, Jacqui, Kamil, Louise, Malcolm, Natalie, Oisín, Penelope, Robert, Susan, Thomas, Valerie and Wilbert.