Now for the weather (another warning)
Of which we’ve already had more this year than all of 2022
MET Éireann has already issued 205 weather warnings this year – more than the whole of 2022 – even though just two storms have been recorded so far in 2023, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
The national forecaster this weekend confirmed it has issued a total of 172 yellow weather alerts, 33 orange warnings but no red alerts so far this year.
This is higher than the figure for all of last year, when there were 178 weather warnings, and also for 2021 when 181 alerts were issued.
The figure comes after Met Éireann’s head of forecasting, Eoin Sherlock, acknowledged changes in the weather warning system need to be made.
Speaking at the launch of the Government’s annual Be Winter Ready information campaign on Wednesday, Mr Sherlock said for most people a yellow warning
‘There’s too many alerts, we need common sense’
means ‘it’s just a soft day’ and that thresholds for wind speed and rainfall would be raised in the future.
He added: ‘We issue warnings based on threshold. We have looked at them, so maybe for the yellow warnings, we’re going to change the thresholds for the wind speeds to be a bit higher.
‘Perhaps for a low temperature, they won’t be as prevalent as they are now. We are cognisant of the fact that there have been too many yellow warnings, that’s what we’re working on.’
The figures for weather warnings were provided by Met Éireann in response to queries from the MoS.
However, deputy head of forecasting Liz Coleman stressed some of the warnings ‘are happening for the same event’.
And she said it is a ‘dangerous game’ to criticise Met Éireann’s warnings, ‘to give people the idea we are issuing too many, when actually it depends on the event and how unpredictable the event might actually be’.
Ms Coleman added: ‘During complex weather events, we would have multiple warnings that would be in place in the same time period. You could have a situation like a storm where there are 20 warnings issued over a three-day period and that’s because we’d be revising them based on new information coming through.’
However, several residents in parts of Co. Cork who felt the brunt of the devastating
Storm Babet this week, questioned why Met Éireann didn’t revise its orange weather warning to a red alert as the town of Midleton was submerged under flood waters. The floods have devastated families and businesses in the east Cork town, where a month’s worth of rain fell in the space of two days causing the worst floods in the area in almost a decade. More than 100 homes had to be evacuated and dozens of businesses face financial ruin as they come to terms with the cost of the damage. Political concern has also grown over the amount and frequency of alerts.
Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice told the MoS: ‘There are too many alerts. If a sheep coughs, or there’s a bit of frost or a breeze it’s an alert.
‘We need more common sense. If there are too many alerts over too many small things people start to ignore them. Alerts should be for significant weather events.
‘Yellow alerts are ignored by the public. Midleton should have been a red alert.’
Cork-based Fine Gael Senator Tim Lombard added: ‘If you have too many alerts over things that are not hugely significant events there is a danger of the boy who
cried wolf syndrome where people are not startled by an alert.’
He called for greater quality control, adding: ‘The current system is open to question. It’s crazy. Midleton is under four foot of water. The system needs a reboot.’
Fianna Fáil Co. Cork councillor Ann Marie Ahern said it was ‘abysmal’ Met Éireann did not adjust their warning to red.
She added: ‘It should have been escalated to a red warning, it’s the highest level of red. If the system can’t be corrected, it needs to be reviewed.’
Labour Cork city councillor John Maher said if the warning had been upgraded ‘maybe schools wouldn’t have gone in and that would have reduced the traffic’.
However, Ms Coleman said Met Éireann is in a ‘tricky situation’ because the meteorological service puts its warnings out on a county level. She said there is a danger the
public may become complacent because ‘there could be a situation where one part of the county is experiencing intense rainfall and the other part of the county isn’t and that switches around with every event’.
To combat complacency, Met Éireann said it has begun using more detailed language within its warnings to tell people about the real-life impact the weather will cause.
Ms Coleman added: ‘We are moving into that impact-based arena with our warnings, and that’s why we are seeing that additional wording, so people understand not that there’s going to be “strong winds” or “high volumes of rain”, but what the actual impact is going to be in the area.
‘That’s how we are progressing forward and trying to inform the public as much as possible.’
‘There is a danger of the boy who cried wolf’