Revealed: Here are all the new storm names for the 2023/24 season

Among names on the 2023/23 storm list are Babet, Ciarán, Henk, Stuart, and Walid. Picture: Larry Cummins

Met Éireann has chosen to honour Irish and Northern Irish scientists in storm names for the 2023/24 season.

Today marks the beginning of the new storm season and the list of names as chosen by Met Éireann, the UK Met Office, and the Netherlands weather service KNMI has been released.

Each weather service contributes seven names to the list and this year Met Éireann chose Agnes, Fergus, Jocelyn, Kathleen, Lilian, Nicholas, and Vincent.

Met Éireann asked the public to choose the name for the letter A and the winning result, Agnes, refers to Irish astronomer and science writer Professor Agnes Mary Clerke.

The letter J, meanwhile, is represented by Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the astrophysicist who discovered the first pulsating radio stars, also known as pulsars, in 1967.

Prof Bell Burnell said she was delighted to be included in the distinguished list.

Dr Jocelyn Bell Burnell said she hopes that 'if a potential Storm Jocelyn happens, it may be a useful stirring-up rather than a destructive event'. Picture: Steve Jennings/Getty Images

"I hope that if a potential 'Storm Jocelyn' happens, it may be a useful stirring-up rather than a destructive event," she said.

The other scientists included are:

• Fergus O'Rourke, who contributed to myrmecology, the branch of entomology that deals with ants;
• Kathleen 'Kay' McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, who is one of the mothers of computer programming;
• Kathleen Lonsdale, Irish crystallographer;
• Lillian Bland, an Anglo-Irish journalist and pioneer aviator who was possibly the first woman in the world to build and fly her own aeroplane;
• Nicholas Callan, a physicist who invented the induction coil that is still used in some devices today;
• Vincent Barry, an organic chemist known for leading the team that developed an anti-leprosy drug.

Storms are named when they could cause medium or high impacts on one of the three partner countries.

Head of the forecasting division in Met Éireann, Eoin Sherlock, said that storm naming is an important asset in the service's warnings arsenal.

"It connects our weather services more closely to the public, helping us in our mission to protect lives and property and ensuring the safety of our communities," said Mr Sherlock.

The full list of names for the 2023/24 storm season. Graphic: Met Éireann

Storm naming happens in conjunction with the regularly-used orange/red weather warnings which can be for wind, rain, or snow or a combination of these.

Met Éireann first partnered with the UK Met Office in storm naming in 2015 and they were joined by the Netherlands in 2019.

Among the other names on the 2023/23 list are: Babet, Ciarán, Debi, Elin, Gerrit, Henk, Isha, Minnie, Olga, Piet, Regina, Stuart, Tamiko, and Walid.

Other national meteorological services in the US and Europe also name storms. When any met service names a weather system, all others keep that name.

However, this excludes ex-hurricanes named by the US National Hurricane Center, as seen with Charley in 1986 and Ophelia in 2017 which had major impacts in Ireland when they crossed the Atlantic.