Dora, Filomena, Hortense Paula, Rodrigo and Sofia. These are the Portuguese names chosen to name some of the storms that are predicted to occur in Europe in the 2020-2021 season.
The 2020-2021 storm naming season will start using the list of storm names from A to Z which is already available and is valid from October 1st, ie tomorrow.
IPMA, representing Portugal, joined the European project of naming storms on 1 December 2017, during the joint activity of the National Meteorological Services of Europe.
This initiative was developed under the “Working Group on the Cooperation between European Forecasters (WGCEF) of EUMETNET and aims to draw the attention of the public and the media to the prevention and safeguarding of lives and property at risk, improve communication between meteorological services and facilitate the monitoring and study of depressions throughout its route over Europe.
For this purpose, all depressions that give rise to an orange or red level wind warning are given a name in the international weather warning system (project WEATHER ALARM which IPMA has adhered to since its inception).
The first country that issues this warning names the depression and informs the rest of the countries, who must keep the name.
The depressions resulting from tropical storms retain the name initially given by the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
«The articulation of different practices that have existed for a long time in different European countries, as well as the inherent difficulties in building a communication platform between all the National Meteorological Services, results in the current coexistence of several lists of names for the depressions that affect the various regions of Europe”, explains the IPMA.
IPMA, AEMET, Météo-France and RMI constitute the southwest group (SW), sharing the list published here, in close collaboration with the west group (W) which includes MetOffice (England), Met-Éireann (Ireland) and KNMI (Netherlands).
That institute draws attention to the fact that «depressions that have been given a name for originating a very strong wind in a region of Europe, may have other (or even none) impacts on our territory».
On the other hand, "the intensity of the wind being the only criterion for naming the depression, storms that have not been given a name may be associated with precipitation, thunderstorm, snowfall or maritime agitation, with such an impact as to give rise to a weather warning in the national territory”.
Comments