MPL: The Alphabet of Storms

Gecko Towers:

The most recent of the pernicious weather systems that has battered the Costa del Sol, Storm Laurence, dropped around a metre of rain on Malaga province between Monday and Tuesday (17/18th March) leading to flooding and associated mayhem across the province.

Hard on its heel, we are today (20.03) awaiting the arrival of Storm Martinho that is set to bring wet conditions back along the Costa del Sol after a day of sun yesterday. Scheduled to be with us only for 48 hours. Sunday onwards and, apparently for the rest of next week, sees the welcome the return of the Sun.

Prior to Laurence and Martinho, we had the troublesome duo of Jana and Konrad. Quite clearly an alphabetical pattern is emerging. It made me think that somebody somewhere in the ivory towers of meteorological observation in Southern Europe was following the alphabet and coming up with a consecutive list of names. So whose job is it to name these weather systems?

It turns out that weather system naming in Europe, as established in 2013 by a network of 33 European weather agencies, determines who has the responsibility of the national meteorological services belonging to the geographical area in which a weather system originates. These services then collaborate to give the system a name, which is then used throughout Europe. 

If the storm originates in Spain, for example, then it was named by the Spanish weather agency called “AEMET” (State Meteorological Agency). Spain, France, and Portugal all work together in the same way the UK (the Met Office), Ireland and the Netherlands collaborate. So the name used in the UK, for example, will be adopted from the Spanish/French/Portuguese name that next appears on their alphabetical list of names that has been pre-selected and vice versa.

The as yet unused AEMET names for 2024/25 are Nuria, Olivier, Pauline, Rudiger, Salma, Timothee, Vanda and Wolfgang.

So now you know!

One final note, a friend sent me a news report that confirmed that Málaga’s reservoirs now exceed 316 Hm3. This is noted as being the highest recorded level in nearly four years, since 16.07.21, to be precise.

The report on Cadenasur, noted that the reservoir systems of Malaga province, having gained 145 Hm3 since February, now sits at around 52% of their capacity. Embalse de la Concepcion (Istan) sat at 88%.

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