From ‘Aitor’ to ‘Wolfgang’, these are the names of the new season of deep storms

On Sunday, September 1st, it began The new season of strong-impact storms in Europe, the eighth since the European nominating team for the southwest began its work, which was created in 2017 by the meteorological agencies of Spain, Portugal and France, later joined by Belgium and Luxembourg, to name the worst storms and thus better warn of their possible adverse effects on the population in the form of wind, rain, snow or rough seas. Although it is not yet on the radar, the first named storm of this 2024-2025 will be Aitor and the last one, Wolfgang. On the list, it stands out for its meaning for the Spanish public. Herminia, the grandmother of Tell me.

All the names for the new season, which runs from September to September, are Aitor, Berenice, Caetano, Dorothea, Enol, Floriane, Garoe, Herminia, Ivo, Jana, Konrad, Laurence, Martinho, Nuria, Olivier, Pauline, Rudiger, Salma, Timothy, Vanda and Wolfgang. The list includes names from all the other languages ​​spoken in the countries of the group, for example Dorothea is the German version of the Spanish Dorotea and the English Dorothy, all three the same female name of Greek origin whose meaning is Gift of God. “There are names from all the countries and we try, although it is difficult, to make them pronounceable in all languages,” clarifies in a thread by X Aemet.

Storms, also called depressions or low pressure areas, are meteorologically the worst phenomenon that Europe can suffer, since they can bring with them hurricane-force winds, that is, winds of more than 120 kilometres per hour. But Not all of them are namedbut only those that are expected to cause a major impact due to the ferocity of their winds, which must be over 90 kilometres (orange warning).

Even if there are not going to be such strong winds, they are also baptized when they can cause very adverse weather due to rain or snowfall of orange or red level, the maximum. The objective, as is done with hurricanes in the US – not in vain a storm is a cyclone, just like a hurricane – is to make the communication of the risks for the population more effective. And, as in this country, an alphabetical order is followed and a male name alternates with a female name.

With this list in hand, the first country in the group affected by the phenomenon will name it and it will not change throughout its life cycle. In addition to the Spanish team, there are four other groups of names in Europe: western (the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands, which were the pioneers), northern (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), central (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), central Mediterranean (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Malta) and eastern Mediterranean (Greece, Cyprus and Israel).

In short, Spain and its group name the Atlantic and Western Mediterranean storms that affect them, and Greece, for example, does the same with its own. But, to add a little more confusion to the matter, the Free University of Berlin has allowed citizens to sponsor and name anticyclones and all types of storms since 1954, so it can happen, and in fact does happen, that the same European phenomenon has two different names. Naming a storm costs 199 euros and an anticyclone, 299.because they last longer. The funds raised are used for research.

This is the second year that the names have been collected in a table. Last year Aemet changed the colorful rosco ―named for its similarity to the contest’s donut Pasapalabra― which had been used to represent these phenomena since the 2020-2021 season by a simple blue spiral on a white background. The rosco was inaugurated in 2020-2021, the season of the tremendous FilomenaFor the first three it was a table, so the design has changed four times in the first six seasons of appointment.

The last personalized storm of the previous season was Renatanamed last April by Météo-France. They remained unused Sancho, Tatiana, Basque and Wilhelmina. Unlike what has already happened twice with the list of hurricane names, the list of names for the southwestern European group has never been exhausted until now.