Gecko Towers:
During the Spring, the pernicious weather systems that battered the Costa del Sol, Storm Laurence, dropped around a metre of rain on Malaga province between 17/18th March leading to flooding and associated mayhem across the province.
Hard on its heel, on 20th March, we awaited the arrival of Storm Martinho that that brought wet conditions back along the Costa del Sol. It was scheduled to be with us for only 48 hours.
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!
As I write (24.09.25) we are receiving reports that Hurricane Gabrielle (named by the US National Hurricane Center) is barreling towards Portugal and there is every likelihood that it will affect the Costa del Sol weather system by late this week to early next week. The better news is that its precise trajectory of the path of the Hurricane is uncertain and it may reduce in intensity before it arrives in Europe. That said if it does arrive be conscious that the rain may be intense accompanied by thunderstorms.
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