Storm Imogen: When a storm has your daughter's name, you can't help feeling interested in its progress

It almost makes up for Imogen Thomas, the Big Brother contestant who lasted almost three months "in the house" 10 years ago, says Tim Willis

There she blows: a Nasa satellite image shows Storm Imogen approaching the British Isles yesterday (Atlas Photo Archive/Nasa )

It will be scant consolation to the householders without power in south Wales, the ferry passengers whose Channel-Islands crossings have been cancelled or the Devonians mopping out their sodden ground floors, but at least Storm Imogen has brought a little sunshine into someone's life. Mine.

“Hurricane-strength” winds have been reported, seals washed inland, league football matches delayed and, at the time of writing, the Met Office is warning cyclists across the south of England to take extra care. My best wishes for a speedy recovery go to the children hurt by a falling wall on Sunday. Yet still I emulate Lear. “Blow winds,” say I, “and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow, you hurricanoes!”

I have high hopes that the Western Daily Press will run a banner front-page headline – “Counting the cost of Imogen” – and if it does, I'll be ordering copies for framing. Because, you see, Imogen is the first name of my only child, now 25; consequently, I can't help but wish this weather-event well. I hold it in the same affection as the jeep and the bullet-headed Bruce that share my surname. Not just a storm, but “hurricane-strength”. Well played, girl.

Well played, too, the Met Office for its introduction last year of the new nomenclature, based on US hurricane alerts and alternating male and females in alphabetical order (apart from Q, U, X, Y and Z – so hard luck, Quentin and Xanthe). Its spokesman at the October launch said the aim of the initiative – for which the first batch of names was crowd-sourced – was to increase awareness, and I've certainly been anticipating Imogen ever since.

John Humphrys may have dismissed the system on BBC Radio 4's Today programme last week (there was another storm coming, he said of poor Henry, but we “didn't need” to know its name). For me, though, this week's gale is up there with the Globe Theatre's re-naming Cymbeline as Imogen for the coming autumn season. It almost makes up for Imogen Thomas, the Big Brother contestant who lasted almost three months “in the house” 10 years ago. That was a blow.

Among other reasons – assonance with our surname, the Shakespearean origins – her mother and I had chosen our baby's name because it was relatively rare without being outlandish, because we knew a couple of clever Imogens and because those in the public eye – such as Imogen Stubbs – had a touch of class. So can being a storm redeem Imogen from an affair with the seedy footballer Ryan “gagging order” Giggs? Will Imogen now come to be associated with uprooted trees, kayaks down the high street and piles of flood-damaged furnishings? I can dream.

Or, indeed, dream on. There may be some Clodagh in a Dorset village who was cheered to see her name in lights on 29 November last (although the winds that night dissuaded many local councils from switching on their Christmas illuminations as planned). But I can't say the eponymous storm stuck in my mind. Later this year, I shall be interested in Orla only if it blows as much hot air as the BBC's Ms Guerin. And while Tegan may grab my attention for its sheer oddness, I don't imagine I'll be checking its wind speeds (Imogen's was 93mph off the Isle of Wight yesterday, as it happens).

It's shameful, of course, to feel this way – and idiotic, when one considers the real misery of those afflicted. But I'm not alone. There's an Abigail I know who was delighted to share her name with the UK's first “personal” storm, when it swept over Scotland on 10 November 2015 (84mph off South Uist). Alerted to its approach by her friend Barney – whose storm followed hers by exactly a week – she admits she's been called “a force of nature” in the past, but says the pair derived most pleasure from the “rather rude” jokes that inevitably occur when you're discussing people being blown offshore or exposed to the wind.

As for the all-important Imogen (the offspring, not the area of low pressure), she's offering no comment. Well, if you live a couple of miles over the Severn Bridge – currently closed to high-sided vehicles – you're not going to win many friends in the village by chuckling over jack-knifed lorries and toppled chimneys.