4 days Ago By [email protected] (Kate Lally)
A number of Met Office warnings have been issued as the second storm of the season has been named by weather experts. Storm Bert will reach the UK on Saturday, "bringing heavy rain and snow, together with strong winds to large swathes of the country". Ahead of the storm, meteorologists have said that "wintry showers will continue to impact parts of the UK on Thursday and Friday, particularly exposed areas in the north, and there are still a number of National Severe Weather Warnings in place for snow and ice.
" The list of storms for the upcoming season are confirmed in September of each year. Storm Bert follows Storm Ashley, which hit parts of the UK last month. Any further named storms will be called Conall, Darragh, Eowyn, Floris, Gerben, Hugo, Izzy, James, Kayleigh, Lewis, Mavis, Naoise, Otje, Poppy, Rafi, Sayuri, Tilly, Vivienne, and Wren - in that order.
A wet and windy autumn and winter contributed to 12 named storms in 2023/24 - the highest number since the naming of storms started in 2015. Storm names never begin with Q, U, X, Y or Z. The Met Office explained: "To ensure we are in line with the US National Hurricane Centre naming conventions, we are not going to include names which begin with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z.
This will maintain consistency for official storm naming in the North Atlantic.".
