With various names having been ascribed to the gales that plagued Suffolk yesterday morning, there was some confusion as to what the storm was actually called.

Storm Fionn, Storm Georgina, Storm David and Storm Friederike were all names being bandied about, but the Met Office has confirmed it is in fact Storm David.

Storm Fionn was that which hit Ireland on Tuesday, while Storm Georgina doesn’t currently exist.

A Met Office spokesman said: “We were all aware this was happening on Wednesday evening, and we had started to send warnings out on Monday, but there was such uncertainty because of the way the pressure was developing.

“It was more certain it was going to develop as it left and went over sea.

“They had greater confidence in that area of the world [France] that it would be a storm so that was the decision to name it, and we have taken on that name Storm David.

“In terms of why we didn’t name it, we weren’t in a position at that time it was going to meet the criteria.

“It would need to have an amber warning for wind, and we had a yellow weather warning in place.

“Speaking to the meterologists, they seem happy with that assessment.”

Had an amber warning been in place, it would have been named by the UK Met Office, rather than the French team Meteo-France, but because it did not meet storm criteria at the time it would have been named, it was not given a name.

The warnings are determined by the level of impact at the time, rather than a specific wind speed, according to the Met Office.

Storm Friederike is the name ascribed to the gusts which have been impacting the Netherlands and Germany.