Family, pets and Lord of the Rings characters among Met Office’s new storm names
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Your support makes all the difference.The first storm of the year will be named after a Lord of the Rings character after thousands of suggestions were submitted to the Met Office.
For the past seven years in the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands, members of the public have been invited to put forward names for the strongest weather systems to hit the country over the next 12 months.
Some 10,000 options were sent in with Arwen - a name thought to be of Welsh origin and popularised by JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy - will be the first to kick of the year beginning September 2021.
Kim, Logan, Ruby and Dudley were among the names selected by the Met Office, Met Eireann and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.
The Met Office said Kim was nominated in recognition of a “whirlwind” relative, while Logan was suggested by several grandparents and parents as a homage to a grandson who “runs through the house like a tornado”.
Ruby was put forth by a cat owner whose pet “comes in and acts like a storm”, and a parents whose daughter “leaves a trail of destruction” wherever she goes.
Dudley fought of competition from seven other strong names beginning with D after being submitted by a couple who will share it as a last name after their wedding in 2022.
Other names on the list - which does not use names beginning with Q, U, X, Y or Z - include Barra, Corrie, Eunice, Franklin, Gladys, Herman, Imani, Jack, Meabh, Nasim, Olwen, Pol, Sean, Tineke, Vergil and Willemien.
Storms are named only when they are deemed to cause medium or high impacts from strong winds, rain or snow.
The 2020-21 storm season saw the UK hit by five Met Office-named storms, with the latest - Storm Evert - sweeping across southern areas of England and Wales at the end of July.
In Europe, heavy rainfall in July led to severe flooding in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Will Lang, head of the National Severe Weather Warning Service at the Met Office, said: "We’re all aware of some of the severe weather that has been witnessed across Europe and globally in recent months and we work to use any tool at our disposal to ensure the public is informed of potential risks, and naming storms is just one way we do that."
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