I wonder why storms get named. One named Elias gave us a run for the money. I’ve got a better name for him. Click through to find out.
Do storms really have an identity?
When I was a kid, the weather was simple. If the forecast said rain, you grabbed an umbrella. If it was windy, you left the umbrella at home unless you fancied an unexpected flight across the neighbourhood like Mary Poppins. If a storm was coming, nobody panicked. You just shut the windows, made a cup of tea, and hoped the roof stayed put.
But now, apparently, weather has an identity. Some bright spark in the meteorological office decided storms needed names. As if that would somehow make them more relatable. As if calling a raging tempest Colin would help us feel more emotionally connected while it uprooted trees and turned garden furniture into airborne missiles.
It all started in 2015 with Storm Abigail. And what did Abigail do? The same thing every other storm before her did—howled a bit, rained a lot, and made sure nobody’s washing dried properly. But because she had a name, people lost their minds. Supermarkets were raided for toilet rolls, bottled water, and enough canned goods to last through the apocalypse.
Storms get names. Seriously?
Since then, we’ve had an entire parade of oddly friendly-sounding tempests—Ashley, Bert, Mavis… These do not sound like natural disasters. They sound like your great-aunt’s bridge club. Bert? Really? Bert sounds like the bloke who fixes your boiler, not an unstoppable force of nature. At best, a Storm Bert might knock over a patio chair and slightly inconvenience your trip to the supermarket.
Originally, they planned to use the Greek alphabet to name storms. But, unsurprisingly, that caused “confusion.” Apparently, nobody could pronounce half the names. Poor Storm Xi was probably wandering around completely unnoticed because no one was sure if it had arrived or not. Meanwhile, Storm Omicron sounded like the latest sci-fi villain taking over the planet.
And this is the real issue—how are we supposed to take a storm seriously when it’s called Storm Nigel? Nigel doesn’t sound like he’s going to rip your roof off—he sounds like he should be organising a pub quiz. Storm Dennis? At worst, Dennis might ruffle your hair a bit. If you really want to get people’s attention, name it Storm Tyson. That’s a storm you’d respect. A storm where you’d barricade the windows, evacuate the village, and make peace with your maker. But Storm Mildred? That just makes me want to put the kettle on and wait it out.
Of all the storms…. meet Elias
Now, let me tell you about the storm that wiped out our home in Greece. It was called Storm Elias. Elias! A biblical prophet. What he was doing rampaging through a tiny island in the Aegean, nobody knows. I imagine him up in heaven, watching the destruction unfold, shaking his head and muttering, “Nothing to do with me.”
Here’s what happened. We woke up to absolute carnage. Our beautiful home—wrecked. Roads—washed away. The river that normally trickled politely past our village had decided it was in the mood for a rampage, sweeping through houses, tearing down walls, and turning cars into boats. And yet, people kept referring to it as Elias, as if he were some guy who got a bit carried away at a wedding.
Someone casually asked me, “Did Elias reach you?”
Now, I appreciate that in most places, this would be a reasonable question. If we were talking about a long-lost cousin or a parcel from Amazon, the phrasing would make perfect sense. But Elias wasn’t a relative popping in for an ouzo, nor was he a delivery that got held up in customs. Elias was a storm. And not just any storm—the kind that makes you think the world as we know it was ending.
So, did Elias reach us?
Elias the invader
Oh, Elias didn’t just reach us. He moved in. Emptied the fridge, then took the fridge with him. Redecorated the entire house with mud, applied his signature “chaos and devastation” theme, and did to our garden what a couple of thousand years of soil erosion usually achieves. Then, just for good measure, he readjusted the local river so it conveniently ran through our living room. I’m still finding frogs in the wardrobes.
Elias wasn’t just a storm—he was a full-scale home invasion, a biblical-level renovation that nobody asked for.
I can picture him now, standing in the ruins of our once-beautiful home, surveying his handiwork with a smug look on his face. “Yes, I think that’ll do nicely,” he says, casually poking the last section of wall that hadn’t been washed away before storming off to his next unsuspecting victim.
So, to answer the question: Yes. Elias reached us. He hugged us, shook us by the throat, and left us wondering what the hell happened.
Read the full, ridiculous tale of how a storm named after an ancient prophet turned our Greek island life into a survival documentary, in my forthcoming book, The Parthenon Paradox: Rivers of Redemption, out next month!
So, I say enough is enough. Stop naming storms after saints, kindly old uncles, and tea-drinking grandmothers. Let’s call them what they truly are.
From now on, Storm Elias shall be officially renamed Storm Absolute Bastard.
And then I wrote about him
Get ready for the full, chaotic tale of how a biblical-named storm turned our Greek island life upside down, in The Parthenon Paradox: Rivers of Redemption—out March 14, 2025. It’s available for pre-order here.
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Read more tales of Greek life & love:
Mud, Mess, and Miracles: The Kindness of a Greek Village
The Beauty of an Anglo-Greek Marriage
Learn about Peter’s books