Saint's name among 7 picked by weather service

AS THE summer officially ends it has been revealed that Patrick could make a return to Ireland not as a saint - but in the form of a storm.

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The name of Ireland's patron saint is just one of seven chosen by Met Eireann for the coming storm season which runs until the end of next August.

The other six picked by the country's meteorological service include Bram, Fionnuala, Gerard, Kasia, Marty and Tadhg with the latter name set to prove difficult for forecasters across the water to pronounce.

All the new names were proposed by the public on what marks the 10th year anniversary of the storm naming initiative.

This was done in partnership with the UK's Met Office and the Netherlands weather service and came after all three state bodies asked the public for name suggestions.

Of the list of 21 names, each of the national partners has contributed seven names.

Met Eireann had called on the Irish public to submit their preferred choices through a social media campaign and over 10,000 names were received from 4,137 people.

The letters Q, U, X, Y, Z are not included, which is in line with the US National Hurricane Center naming convention.