How did Storm Abigail get its name?

Storm Abigail is expected to cause disruption across the country

Abigail is the first officially named storm in Britain and is one from a list of names thought up by the public.

It was predicted many months ago by the Met Office and Met Éireann - the national weather services of the UK and Republic of Ireland respectively - that the country would be hit by some pretty powerful wind storms.

Scotland’s past few winters have seen a few wind storms that affected Ireland and the UK as a whole. The naming of these storms, such as St Jude’s day storm proved the benefits of established protocol for the naming of mid-latitude storms.

The Met Office and Met Éireann therefore decided to pilot a new scheme to name the storms, where they asked the public to suggest what should be used.

As storms which move in from the Atlantic often have their biggest impact across Ireland, the Met Office regularly work in partnership with the Irish Met Service.

A Met Office spokesperson said: “The whole idea behind the ‘Name our Storms’ project is to engage the public and raise awareness of severe weather to ensure safety- by getting the public to suggest names – we received thousands- we have successfully got people talking about the weather.”

By having one single name for the storm, the organisations hope this will aid the communication of approaching severe weather through media partners and other government agencies. In using Abigail, the public will be better placed to keep themselves, their property and businesses safe.

Members of the public entered thousands of suggestions, including Steve, Wendy and Vernon, which will be used throughout 2015/2016.

Other more imaginative names were also suggested including branch wobbler, trunk trembler, root ripper, armageddon and Zebedee.

Outside of Britain, tropical storms are named using a standard method laid out by the World Meteorological Organisation whereby each ocean basin is given a list of hurricane names for six years.

Names are put forward by the Tropical Cyclone Regional Body,of which there are five, for that ocean basin.

Hurricanes, on the other hand, are named using a rotating list of male and female names.

Feminine names for storms were first established in the mid 1990s when the mast of a boat named Antje was ripped off by a storm which became known as Antje’s hurricane.

Find out more about Storm Abigail here.