Does Storm Dylan sound more deadly than Doris?

THE UK’s national weather service might stop giving deadly storms female names amid concerns the public treat them less seriously.

The Met Office is investigating whether or not there is a link between storms with feminine names and a higher death toll.

It comes as scientists in the US claimed that hurricanes with masculine names caused fewer casualities as they were perceived as more serious and people were therefore more likely to stay indoors. But the more feminine- sounding a storm’s name, they said, the more people it killed as people did not feel as concerned and took fewer precautions.

Researchers have now been asked to analyse the ‘potential difference in public perception and response’ to storms with male and female names in the UK, according to documents seen by the Daily Telegraph.

The papers revealed the probe was launched after concerns were raised at a meeting last year between the police, the Met Office, the Environment Agency and Highways England. But a Met Office spokesman told the Telegraph that ‘robust conclusions’ have yet to be reached.

In Britain the two deadliest storms in recent years, which each claimed four lives, were Storm Emma in March 2018 and Storm Doris in February 2017, according to the Telegraph. But their overall statistics appeared to show male-named storms were linked to as many as 16 deaths, two more than the ‘female storms’. ‘Male storms’ have included Dylan and Brian, both in December 2017. In 2014, researchers at the University of Illinois analysed more than 60 years of data on hurricane deaths and found giving a storm a female name could nearly triple its death toll. But the findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have faced criticism that the link was merely a coincidence.

The Met Office said : ‘The name of a storm is just one of many non-weather factors which need to be considered when understanding how people make decisions when dangerous storms threaten.’