Should the Met Office have named last night’s storm?

[xmetman]

The press office at the Met Office have published a blog entitled:

Should the Met Office have named last night’s storm?

Here's my two penneth for what it's worth:

Until all national weather service providers across Europe agree on a common way of naming storms, which I believe should be by fixed thresholds and not impacts, we will continue to experience days like today. People these days are able to access weather warnings from various weather services across Europe by means of social media, and disagreements about whether a storm should be named or not can be confusing.

It's easily remedied - the Met Office should revert to the naming of a storms using agreed European thresholds, and keep the naming process completely separate from the issuing of national severe weather warnings, which would continue to use impacts to decide which level of warning was appropriate.

As to whether the storm should have been named, I think the 05 UTC observation from Wittering in Cambridgeshire when the 10 minute mean speed was 48 knots (Beaufort storm force 10) and it was gusting to 64 knots (74 mph) is undeniable proof that it should have been named Georgina.

What do you think?

[Freddie]

I think they were expecting it to deepen rapidly later on when it was over the North Sea, rather than when crossing England. I would've named it though, had it been my call - based on gusts over Wales and western England. But maybe it was too late by then?

--
Freddie

[Len W]

The impacts business is silly in my view. That is just subjective.
There should be thresholds of wind , rain , cold , heat, fog .. for giving warnings on a met. basis.

The naming of storms is just a silly add on.
It is only introduced to raise the profile of the likely severity of the depression.
Being as this is different on a 100 km scale it makes it difficult having a common name for the whole of N. Europe.

It's a can of worms.

Len
Wembury

[John Hall]

I wonder if the Met Office have become so used to the Irish met office naming storms, because they usually experience them before we do, that in this case when the Irish - quite rightly - didn't do so they simply overlooked it.