Naming Storms

[poliphilo]

The storm that is currently blowing itself out over the British Isles is called Ali.

I understand the Met Office has a list of acceptable names- drawn up with help from the public.

How long will it take to run through it? It can't be inexhaustible- though it must run into many thousands. Or must it? How many personal names are recognised as such in the English-speaking world? And how many of those would be fit for meteorological purpose? Exotic one-off coinages like "Leaf"and "River" (I'm thinking of the Phoenix family) are presumably ruled out. Storm Leaf sounds silly anyway- though I suppose storm Leif (which sounds the same) would be fine. I imagine Storm Storm isn't going to happen- and the same probably goes for other weather-related names like Rain/Raine. Fifi is a proper name but will there ever be a Storm Fifi? I doubt it. Or, for that matter, a Storm Algernon. Effete sounding names are surely out (unless whoever does the naming has a sense of humour.) I don't think there'll ever be a Storm Mohammed. Or a Storm Jesus. Other names might be considered politically sensitive; Storm Vladimir is probably one to be avoided for the time being. Also Storm Donald- because you really don't want to do anything to inflate certain people's already enormous egos.

Names for the season are released in advance but I don't think the full list has ever been published- and if it has I'm not sure I want to see it- because, you know- spoilers....

Comments

[poliphilo]

I understand that there are no names on the list beginning with X,Y or Z- I can't think why.

[qatsi]

There's probably a top-secret list somewhere but they're hoping there will never be more than 23 named storms in a season.

[oakmouse]

The US doesn't usually have any either, because we don't usually have that many named storms in one season. But back in Katrina year, we ran off the end of the alphabet (Rita, for example, was in October) and so now we have a handful of XYZ names on the list.