Lilian is first time UK’s storm-naming alphabet has reached L

Storm Lilian, which has brought strong winds exceeding 70mph to northern parts of England and Wales on Friday, is the 12th named storm of the season and the first time the letter L has been used for the name.

Storm season, which runs from the start of September to the end of the following August, has only reached K twice since the Met Office began naming storms in 2015.

In April, Kathleen was the second K-named storm, following Storm Katie in March 2016.

Storm Lilian is named after Anglo-Irish journalist and pioneering aviator Lilian Bland, who was the first woman in Ireland to build and fly an aircraft, according to Met Eireann.

The Met Office’s list of storm names is shared with Met Eireann in Ireland and KNMI, the Dutch national weather forecasting service.

There were only two storms during last year’s season, which ran from September 2022 to August 2023, which made it only as far as the letter B, with Storm Betty in August.

By contrast, this year’s season has recorded Storm Agnes in September 2023; Babet in October; Ciaran and Debi in November; Elin, Fergus and Gerrit in December; Henk, Isha and Jocelyn in January 2024; Kathleen in April; and now Lilian in August.

Not all of the alphabet is used when naming storms.

The letters Q, U, X, Y and Z are omitted, in line with convention established by the US National Hurricane Centre.

It means the storm names still available for the current season, which ends next week, are Minnie, Nicholas, Olga, Piet, Regina, Stuart, Tamiko, Vincent and Walid.

The UK occasionally experiences a storm that has been named by another country because of where it was first detected.

For example, in December 2023 Northern Ireland was hit by strong winds that were part of Storm Pia, named by the Danish Met Office.

In the Met Office list of storm names for 2023/24, the letter P has been assigned the name Piet.