6 Severe Weather Warnings

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I have had a constructive exchange of views with  the MET Office on improvements that could be made to the Severe Weather Warnings for ice. When ice severity meets a certain level of severity a Severe Weather Warning is issued. All transport including traction controlled vehicles with crumple zones are grouped together in this assessment. This disadvantages cyclists who are classed by the Department of Transport as vulnerable road users.

Since any ice is dangerous to a cyclist the concept of ‘severe ice’ has little meaning for this group of road users. I was advised that this is unlikely to change.

At present Severe Weather Warnings can cover a very wide area and are acknowledged by the MET Office as being prone to error on a local basis. For example, on 27 February a yellow ice warning was issued that stretched from the north of Scotland to close to Lands End. There was just one start and finish time. On 27 May 2017 a Severe Weather Warning for rain was issued at 1.25 am for Portishead, The warning stretched from Lands End to the Wash with a duration of 23 hours. However the rain had stopped in Portishead after four hours.

 

‘At present Severe Weather Warnings can cover a very wide area and are prone to error on a local basis’

 

 

 

I argued for greater local emphasis so the warning could be  a reliable guide for travellers. I am pleased to say that the MET Office have followed this up and on 13 March 2017 I received an email from the MET Office stating:-

 

‘In the last few months we got the ability to display warnings for just a single local authority, meaning we will rely less on regional warnings in our communications in future.  However we are still developing the forecaster’s tool for creating the warnings; with aims issue warnings faster, without errors and with smaller focus areas/ narrower timings.  This latter work is on-going and visible change will be gradual.

There will still be occasions when forecasters issue large areas for warnings, when either they can’t pinpoint the impact or the impact is expected to cover a very wide area.  The new tools will allow more granular warnings and, when information is insufficient, large area warnings will probably still be issued too.’

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Encouraging MET advice by email on  13 March 2017:

‘ In the last few months we have got the ability to display warnings for just  a single local authority. We are still developing the forecaster’s tool with aims to issue warnings faster, without errors and with smaller focus areas/narrower timings’

 

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By applying the new techniques of the Severe Weather Warning system to all ice forecasting, many of the shortcomings in ice prediction could be overcome.

 

‘By applying the new techniques of the Severe Weather Warning system to all ice forecasting, many of the shortcomings in ice prediction could be overcome’