The news that Storm Brian might be descending on the UK has caused a lot of people worry - but there has also been seen tittering about the name "Brian".

The practice of naming storms comes from the US and the names for this year's storms have already been chosen.

Why are the storms named?

According to research, people take more notice of a storm warning if the storm is named.

A YouGov survey based on the first seven storms found people were better prepared to act on the warnings and information when the storms were given names.

It is common practice to name storms in America.

What are the names for storms this year?

Echo:

How are the names chosen?

In September 2015, the Met Office began its Name Our Storms campaign and asked the public to send in their suggestions for names.

It received thousands of suggestions and this years list includes some of the most popular of those together with suggestions from Met Éireann.

Why are there no storms called Q, U, X, Y AND Z?

To ensure the UK is in line with the US National Hurricane Centre naming conventions, the Met Office is 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.

When is a storm named?

The criteria used for naming storms is based on the National Severe Weather Warnings service. This is based on a combination of both the impact the weather may have, and the likelihood of those impacts occurring.

A storm will be named when it has the potential to cause an amber 'be prepared' or red 'take action' warning.

Other weather types will also be considered, specifically rain if its impact could lead to flooding as advised by the Environment Agency, SEPA and Natural Resources Wales flood warnings. Therefore 'storms systems' could be named on the basis of impacts from the wind but also include the impacts of rain and snow.