19th January - Today's News: Naming Controversy in Wake of Deadly European Storm

Storm name controversy in the wake of Fionn/not-Fionn/no-name/David/Friederike .....  Liam Dutton explains why I criticised Met Eireann for naming Storm Fionn whilst the Met Office criticised for not naming storm which battered Britain.  So should the Met Office have named last night’s storm? Yes and no.  Yes, it should under the current policy, but it's a policy I am not alone in thinking should be dropped - not least because of the way it's deliberately misused by the media to cause confusion, concern and to generate sales ....  And the rest of Europe needs to get it's act together too and agree that if a storm IS named, it's only named once!

Whatever its name, storm kills at least seven as it rips roofs from buildings and flips trucks in Europe

with all long-distance trains cancelled across Germany until further notice due to hurricane as a video shows pedestrians get blown away in shocking footage as 140kph gusts batter Netherlands.   This morning, Germany in huge clean-up as trains run again

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of schools closed and dozens of crashes as snow and ice blight Britain and thousands without power in East Anglia as snow storms hit UK

And fascinating pictures capture rare phenomenon of natural snowballs rolled by the wind in a Scottish field

In Australia, southern states swelter as power supply struggles

One dead as Israel hit by massive winter storm

After Cyclone Berguitta, Mauritius counts damage, considers itself lucky

And it's confirmed that 2017 'warmest year without El Niño'