Martin Rowley wrote in message ...

:"Pete B" wrote in message
: I thought that the forecasters themselves gave highs and lows names on
:the
: professional forecast charts. See:
: http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/de/wetter/maps/anabwkna.gif

:... the UK service stopped labelling such a few years ago - a backward
:step in my view, at least for the immediate NE Atlantic. The labelling
n the charts you note come from Germany - but whether this is DWD
ractice, or additional labelling by FU Berlin on top of the DWD
:analysis I'm not sure.

The names are given by the Free University of Berlin - the practice started
there in 1954. Since 1990 they have become more widely known and are now
routinely used in the German media. The history of the naming of lows and
highs is explained in German here
http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/wetterpate/historie/ . Unfortunately I cannot
find any English version of this.

For a long time, depressions were always given female names and anticyclones
male ones. In 1998 it was suggested that this amounted to discrimination
against women. Since then, in agreement with the DWD and private weather
companies, the use of male and female names for lows and highs alternates
from year to year. In 2004 anticyclones are male and depressions female.
In 2005 depressions will be given male names.

In 2002 it seemed that - because of lack of funds - the Berlin-Dahlem
station 10381 of the FU Berlin would have to stop 24-hour manual recording
of the weather and rely largely on more limited automatic observations.

So that Dahlem's long and full record would not be interrupted, meteorology
students at the FU Berlin agreed to take on the task of making the
observations themselves.

To raise funds they hit on the idea of asking people to "sponsor" a
depression or anticyclone. For a payment of 299 euros (anticyclone) or 199
euros (depression) the FU Berlin will use your name - or any other name you
choose - for a pressure system http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/wetterpate/ .

This year's lists of names and their sponsors are here
http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/wetterpate/tief/#aktuell (lows)
http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/wetterpate/hoch/#aktuell (highs). The
anticyclone responsible for the current spell of fine weather in Britain and
Western Europe is "Stephan" - given that name on 12th May and sponsored by
one Stephan Vogler.

Colin Youngs
Brussels