Storm Erik : Friday 8th February 2019

Status Yellow - Rainfall warning for Donegal, Galway, Mayo and Kerry

30 to 40 mm rainfall expected with risk of spot flooding, especially on coasts and hills.

Valid: Friday 08 February 2019 00:01 to Friday 08 February 2019 23:59

Issued: Thursday 07 February 2019 18:58

Updated: Thursday 07 February 2019 18:58

aisling86 wrote: »

Is Erik not going to pack a punch or is everyone waiting to nowcast.... thought it would be alot busier here tonight.

Not going to impact the East Coast but if it was !!!!

What I have learned on this thread, and on others recently, is basically no matter what ME do half the people on here will be giving out.

If they don’t name it it will be “cant believe they didn’t name this. Its much worse here than storm X last month”

If they do name it “can’t believe they named this its only going to be a normal windy day”

That’s life I guess.

Bio Mech wrote: »

What I have learned on this thread, and on others recently, is basically no matter what ME do half the people on here will be giving out.

If they don’t name it it will be “cant believe they didn’t name this. Its much worse here than storm X last month”

If they do name it “can’t believe they named this its only going to be a normal windy day”

That’s life I guess.

Indeed. Rather than simply engage in the moaning, offer a solution.
In this case the solution is very simply that the switch to impact based warning system needs to happen as soon as possible.

MÉ staff are no doubt wonderful but the red tape in any quango requires a chainsaw to cut through and get anything done. Combine this with the apathetic Irish "ah it'll be grand" attitude and you have a process which could be done in a week taking half a decade. Patently ridiculous situation.

I had a long discussion of the storm naming system on Twitter yesterday. The below points pretty much are what my opinion on it is.

I like the idea of naming storms. As a weather historian, I find a naming storm system useful. It's easier to say Storm Ali for example than "a deep area of low pressure on 19th September 2018". I can recall storms easier this way too.

However, such a system needs to be treated with great sensibility. The way the current Mets (UKMO and Met Éireann) do it in my opinion is not very sensible (especially Met Éireann) and really inconsistent (especially UKMO).

Both agencies have entirely different criteria for naming storms. The UKMO's naming system is impact based whilst Met Éireann's is solely based on numerical criteria for gusts or mean wind speeds. I think the UKMO's way of doing it here is 100% superior but even it has problems.

There are many factors that affect how severe or impactful a storm can be. Factors include:

- Time of the day. If it's during the day like Ali when people are commuting and transport services are on, there will be impacts felt compared to at night when there aren't many people.

- Time of year. If it's during mid to late Winter and there are no leaves left on the trees, there will be less of an impact. In early to mid-Autumn when trees are in full leaf, big storms could be very impactful on roads.

- Geography. Is the area of likely impact inland or coastal? Coastal regions are exposed to quite strong gusts whilst strong gusts are relatively rare in inland areas. Fairly moderate winds for coastal regions could be considered strong to very strong in inland areas.

There's more factors but those are the main 3 I can think of. I wish Met Éireann would take a leaf out of the UK Met Office's book here and move to an impact based system as a result. However, that does not mean the UK Met Office does not have any problems, it certainly does.

The UK Met Office is inconsistent. There have been some very impactful storms that were not named (most notably 18 January 2018) and there have been some storms with little impact yet they were named. Met Éireann has a similar issue - mostly with the latter than former.

The current state of the naming storm system has a lot of issues that need to be resolved. One would wonder how on earth semi-state bodies like these Met agencies would be this unprofessional.

The naming storm system is seen as an advantage to the mainstream media in going over the top with scaremongering headlines. I understand this point but then again, the mainstream media is not really in the power of the Met agencies. Mainstream media articles like such should be illegal to be honest.

Last point here being that Met Éireann need to improve on their warning system majorly so. Giving a red or amber warning for the entire country when some areas will barely get a warranted yellow (using their silly fixed numerical criteria) is pathetically lazy.

Issue the necessary warnings for the areas likely to be impacted by the storm. Ophelia was not a stir in a teacup in my opinion but it was quite overhyped by the media and the fact that Met Éireann issued a red warning for the entire country which was not warranted.

I think the best system to name storms would be using wind speed scale , which i think met are currently using. If they drop below the required scale should be called With an EX. For example if Eric wind speed dropped below, it should be called Ex Eric. I think this would work as the population would know what to expect if it's an ex storm or an actual storm.

Potential for a Stingjet off the northwest coast?

This may be one of those events that verifies as an orange level warning at coastal stations but seems more like a yellow level event to most of the population. However, I think it will play out as borderline yellow/orange for significant portions of the population in Connacht and north Clare. Bear in mind, this is coming in quite early, peak gusts may be around 0600-0900h (09-12 for west Ulster).

a rough few hours for Grace going on them Meteorite!