Debbie. Charley. Ophelia … Éowyn.
Storm nomenclature means that some severe weather events seem to register a little easier in our brains than others.
Maybe that’s because what were considered once-in-a-generation occurrences have become much more frequent. But there’s no doubting that the impact of the battering the country took last week will live a lot longer in the memory than November’s Storm Bert, or Storm Barra in 2021.
Already, Éowyn can take its place alongside 1961’s Hurricane Debbie, 2017’s Storm Ophelia and another great historical weather bomb, known simply as the Night of the Big Wind.
The latter event, in January 1839, became a reference…