Portsmouth weather: Here's what the next storm after Dennis and Ciara will be called

There was disruption to train and bus services across the area on Sunday.

It came a week after Storm Ciara wreaked havoc in Portsmouth and the south coast with gale force winds.

But what will the next storm be called?

So far four names have been used from the Met Office’s list for 2019-20.

This includes Atiyah and Brendan as well as Ciara and Dennis of course.

Next up on the list is Ellen, while the remaining names on the list are:

Francis, Gerda, Hugh, Iris, Jan, Kitty, Liam, Maura, Noah, Olivia, Piet, Roisin, Samir, Tara, Vince and Willow.

Why do we name storms?

In the past a storm would go unnamed but that changed in 2015.

That year saw the Met Office and Met Éireann (the meteorological service in the Republic of Ireland) launch the Name our Storms campaign.

With the aim of helping to raise awareness of the potential impacts of severe weather in Britain and Ireland before it hits.

Why are some letters missing?

The Met Office’s list does not include any storms with name starting with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z.

This is to ensure that they remain in line with the US National Hurricane Centre’s naming conventions and will maintain consistency for official storm naming in the North Atlantic.

How do they pick the names?

In the summer of 2019, the Met Office and Met Éireann received thousands of suggestions from the public after asking people to send in ideas for future storm names.

Working together with the Dutch national weather forecasting service the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) they compiled a list of names for the 2019-20 storms.

The storm names were picked from some of the most popular suggestions as well as those which reflect the diversity of the three nations.

Evelyn Cusack, head of forecasting at Met Eireann, said: ‘The naming of storms by National Met Services as well as colour coding weather warnings provides a clear, authoritative and consistent message to the public and prompts people to take action to prevent harm to themselves or to their property.’