It's nearly the end of February, and we haven't seen one single official named storm, but why is that?

Our named storms are chosen by Met Office, Met Éireann and KNMI, with Antoni, Betty and Cillian the first in line. But so far we've seen none, with the exception of Storm Otto, as named by the Danish Met Institute.

By this time of year, it's normal to have at least a couple of named storms on our belt. Typically, by January, we would have seen at least three named storms.

In the autumn and winter of 2015/16 we had a grand total of eight named storms by February, and last year, we had three within February alone; Dudley, Eunice and Franklin.

Low pressure systems are often driven in to our shores from the Atlantic by the jet stream. But our weather pattern so far has been relatively benign and settled, with high pressure predominantly in charge.

In December in particular, we experienced a cold blast which was a result of what we call a "blocking" weather pattern, which prevented potentially stormy, low pressure systems reaching us.

We had some brief unsettled interludes, including when Otto swung by, but none intense enough for us to name for ourselves.

In fact, by the end of this week we will once again see high pressure settle in quite comfortably. So no sign of any named storms just yet, but our list does run until August.