Storm names for 2020-21 announced

Tree felled by Storm Doris in 2017 blocking Edenfield Road

The list of storm names for the UK, Ireland and Netherlands for the next season has been revealed by the Met Office, along with partners Met Éireann and KNMI.

Now coming in to its sixth year, the Name our Storms collaboration has been helping to raise awareness of the potential impacts of severe weather before it arrives. Similar to previous years, the 2020/2021 list has been compiled from names suggested by the public along with names that reflect the diversity of the three nations.

From 1 September, the first storm to impact the UK, Ireland and/or the Netherlands will be named ‘Aiden’, while the second storm will be ‘Bella’. As in previous years, Q, U, X, Y and Z will not be used, to comply with the international storm naming conventions.

For 2020/21, the storms will be named: Aiden, Bella, Christoph, Darcy, Evert (Eh-vert), Fleur, Gavin, Heulwen (Hail-wen), Iain, Julia, Klaas, Lilah (Ly-la), Minne (Minn-eh), Naia (N-eye-a), Oscar, Phoebe, Ravi, Saidhbhín (Sigh-veen), Tobias, Veronica and Wilson.

Last year the Met Office and Met Éireann welcomed KNMI - the national weather forecasting service in the Netherlands - to the west Europe group. 

Other European countries to name impactful storms include France, Spain and Portugal in south-west Europe and Sweden, Norway and Denmark in northern Europe.

Will Lang, Head of the National Severe Weather Warning Service at the Met Office, said: “We are now entering our sixth year of the Name our Storms campaign and we look forward to working closely with our colleagues in Ireland and the Netherlands once again, continuing to raise awareness of the potential impacts of severe weather in order to keep people across our nations safe. 

“The impacts from Storm Ciara and Dennis earlier this year are still fresh in many people's minds and although it’s too early to anticipate what weather this autumn and winter will bring, we are prepared with a new list of names to help raise awareness of severe weather before it hits.”