2016 could see a dash through the storm alphabet
IT IS beginning to feel like a morning roll-call. Abigail? Present. Barney, Clodagh, Desmond, Eva, Frank? All accounted for too. And Gertrude? On her way in from the Atlantic, apparently. Did the Met Office know, when it decided to name winter storms back in October, that by New Year it would already have worked its way so far down the alphabet? And with such destructive consequences?
Last week, Frank brought 120mph winds, stronger even than the 115mph record in the 1987 hurricane, not to mention six inches (150mm) of rain. And that on top of what was already set to be the wettest December on record.
Giving a name to severe weather is widely credited to the BritishAustralian meteorologist Clement Lindley-Wragge in 1887, though he opted for first Greek letters and then politicians’ names. When the Met Office took up the idea recently, it explained that it was to help raise awareness of severe weather. Given the damage that Frank and friends have done so far – blighted Glenridding in Cumbria has now been inundated three times in quick succession – we were hardly likely ever to overlook them. Or forget them.
And forecasts hardly encourage us to hope for kinder times ahead. 2016 is going to be the warmest year on record yet, say the experts, and that comes after a run of three record or near-record years. So does that mean that in quick measure in the months ahead we will have reached W for Wendy (X, Y and Z having missed off the list in a slight to Xanthes, Yogis and Zoes)? “Unlikely,” says the Met Office, but in these topsy-turvy times, we might be wise to prepare ourselves anyway.