Social media users give UK storms the most British names ever

Last month, the Met Office announced it would begin naming the storms that batter the UK and Ireland and asked social media users to put their suggestions in the hat. By giving them a moniker, the weather service hopes that people will track storms when they hit our rainy isles and raise awareness of their impact. That list has now been finalised, and as expected, we've done ourselves proud.

Introducing Abigail, Barney, Frank, Gertrude and Nigel. They're just a handful of names that will be assigned to weather patterns that will potentially cause "medium" or "high" winds across the UK, Ireland or both. It starts with Abigail and will alternate between male and female names as it moves through the alphabet.

The winning names are as follows: Abigail, Barney, Clodagh, Desmond, Eva, Frank, Gertrude, Henry, Imogen, Jake, Katie, Lawrence, Mary, Nigel, Orla, Phil, Rhonda, Steve, Tegan, Vernon and Wendy. Q, U, X, Y and Z have been omitted in order to align with official storm naming in the US.

Tipsters were invited to get involved via Facebook, Twitter and email, although the final decision was made by the Met Office and Irish weather service Met Éireann. To qualify, winds must reach average speeds of between 55 and 63mph -- only then will a storm take on the name of one of your friends' grandparents.

[Image credit: Brian Tomlinson, Flickr]