Here in our part of Wirral, Storm Dudley was a bit off a dud, Eunice huffed and puffed to more dramatic effect, and right now the strong winds of Storm Franklin are bending the trees, a reminder that in common with much of the country we are in a Met Office Yellow weather warning zone today.

Yellow is the lowest tier of warnings, but still has to be taken seriously, while Amber and Red are second and top.

Storms are given names because personalising them in this way registers more firmly in our minds. Says the Met Office's UK Storm Centre: "The naming of storms using a single authoritative system should aid the communication of approaching severe weather through media partners and other government agencies.

"In this way the public will be better placed to keep themselves, their property and businesses safe.

"Since Name our Storms first launched in 2015 we have issued a new list of names each September. The list runs from early September to late August the following year. This coincides with the start of autumn when the likelihood of low pressure systems and the potential for named storms increases."

A storm is given a name from the list when it has the potential to trigger an amber or red warning.

The good news is that you can have a crack at naming a storm and adding to the choices - which could be something fun to do with the children this wind-blown half-term.

The Met Office opened up the naming convention and invited people to send in their ideas for names of future storms.

Thousands of suggestions poured in, and if you want to add to them by naming a storm and explaining why you have chosen it, simply send an email to [email protected]

Apparently Storm Ruby was inspired by a cat who "comes in and acts like a storm", while Storm Logan owes its name to a goalkeeper grandson who is "as quick as lightning".

The bad news: don't propose any names beginning with Q, U, X, Y and Z. The Met Office explains why: "To ensure we are in line with the US National Hurricane Centre naming conventions, we are not going to include names which begin with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z. This will maintain consistency for official storm naming in the North Atlantic."