On 11 September the (UK) Met Office and Met Éireann revealed the list of storm names for the coming season. First introduced in 2015, this is the fourth year the Met Office and Met Éireann (the meteorological service in the Irish Republic) have jointly run the ‘Name our Storms’ scheme, aimed at raising awareness of severe weather before it hits.

This year the first storm will be ‘male’ and named Ali, while the second storm will be ‘female’ and named Bronagh, following the alternating male/female pattern established by the US National Hurricane Center in the 1970s.