Bristol, Jane Askey
If you’re old enough to remember the big storm of 1987, you know the devastation it caused (and to be fair, weather presenter Michael Fish was unfairly blamed for not predicting it). The truth was that computers were not as good back then, and he correctly said it was an extratropical cyclone. However it killed 19 people, destroyed 15 million trees and caused thousands of people to be without power for weeks. When a new storm is approaching, it’s named according to a set rota. The lists runs from September, as we are more likely to get them in winter months, due to low pressure systems.
We are fortunate to not have the huge storms and hurricanes say like in the US, but we have had a fair few of giant storms, including:
- Bristol Channel (1607) caused a massive flood that reached Glastonbury Tor (14 miles away). It destroyed nearly everything and 2000 people died.
- The Great Storm (1703) was possibly our worst storm ever (some people thought it was God ‘punishing them for their sins’). It killed 1500 people and destroyed 2000 chimneys, 17,000 trees in Kent, 4000 trees in the New Forest and blew ships off-course to Sweden.
- Devon Cornwall Blizzard (1891) sounds unusual, as we usually associate warmer weather in the southwest. But there was three days of snow that caused 15 feet high drifts, and even buried trains and brought down telegraph poles. Tragically, most of the 200 people who died did so due to cold, along with 6000 barnyard animals.
- North Sea Flood (1953) was due to a huge storm by the sea, and affected eastern counties and Scotland. It also caused damage in the neighbouring countries of Belgium and The Netherlands, killed 300 people, and destroyed 24,000 houses.
why do storms have names?
So why name storms? It’s mostly to do with communication, and the reason some names are Irish or Dutch is because all three meteorogical offices work together (as you can imagine – the northwestern counties are near Ireland and the eastern counties are near The Netherlands). Based on Severe Weather Warnings, it also links to flood warnings, and impacts of rain, wind and snow. There are no storms named with the letters beginning Q, U, X, Y and Z, in line with national US conventions, to achieve consistency.
The storm names are actually compiled from public suggestions. The first-named storm of 2023 was Storm Otto, with the rest of the storms into the year already named in advance (some will be called Antoni, Betty, Cillian, Daisy, Fleur, Johanna and Tobias).
