Incomplete, badly presented / out of date weather information costing Ireland dearly

probe

It was apparent last Friday to anyone who consulted the Norwegian or Danish met websites that Ireland was heading for a thaw. Despite this, Met Éireann continued to huff and puff out weather warnings along the lines that the freezing weather would continue for another week. Decisions were made based on these alarmist, imprecise and inaccurate forecasts – eg closure of schools until Thursday which will have a significant cost to parents and everybody else involved.

The perennially incorrect Cork Airport website has useless “contact airline” entries for early morning flights that have been cancelled (eg 06h30 to Munich) and no information about the 06h10 flight to Amsterdam – which should be showing “next info 11h30” as I write this.

Norwegian meteo’s 48h forecast for Dublin (updated every hour or so):

http://www.yr.no/place/Ireland/Dublin/Dublin/hour_by_hour.html

Ditto for Cork: http://www.yr.no/place/Ireland/Cork/Cork/hour_by_hour.html

They also provide short and long term forecasts for about 30 Irish cities and towns – click on a town name on the map:

http://www.yr.no/place/Ireland/Cork/Cork/

Danish Meteo has a 6 day chart for six locations in Ireland:

http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/verden/verdensvejr.htm?country=Irland&city=120353001

If you need accurate up to the minute flight delay information for any flight or airport you can get it here – data taken from airline data feeds:

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Home/home.do

They could save money by shutting down Met Eireann and firing the people employed by the DAA who operate their flight status websites!

Sponge Bob

The Icelandic met website is a model of clarity. It gets radar data within 2 minutes and has some excellent atlantic charts together with a clear 5 day forecast.

http://en.vedur.is/

http://en.vedur.is/weather/observations/satellites/

http://en.vedur.is/weather/observations/radar/

Iceland has about the population of county Galway in total, and is bankrupt. The best Galway forecast is the BBC one from UKMO

http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/2299?&search=galway&itemsPerPage=10&region=world

amacachi

To be perfectly honest the main thing I have to question is how good an idea it was to decide to cancel things 5 days away. I just really don't understand why the schools couldn't have been allowed to decide themselves which would and wouldn't be open.

Colm R

amacachi wrote: »

To be perfectly honest the main thing I have to question is how good an idea it was to decide to cancel things 5 days away. I just really don't understand why the schools couldn't have been allowed to decide themselves which would and wouldn't be open.

Dead right. Going on what I know from personal experience this morning and talking to people, most schools in Dublin could open, and many schools in Cork would probably be closed but could open tomorrow.

whosedaddy?

amacachi wrote: »

To be perfectly honest the main thing I have to question is how good an idea it was to decide to cancel things 5 days away. I just really don't understand why the schools couldn't have been allowed to decide themselves which would and wouldn't be open.

Cause the Irish forecast showed heavy snow for Sunday. and given past experience and grit supplies running low, i'd call it a wise decision to cancel things for today.

If they hadn't cancelled things and there had been heavy snowfalls and grit running out - you would have questioned that decision as well.

better safe than sorry.
and at least someone made a decision instead of sitting on the fence :-)

What should be questioned is the quality of the forecast and the intervals of updates.

BrianD

The perennially incorrect Cork Airport website has useless “contact airline” entries for early morning flights that have been cancelled

What's wrong with this? Passengers are going to have to contact their airline to find out what arrangements need to be made.

Furthermore, when you look at the availability of web access in Ireland you have tot to ask whether "see our web site" is sufficient as a means of dessimation of information.

In regard to weather, it is fair to say that met eireanns service is pretty "wordy" when compared to the very data heavy services offered by other companies online (which must be based on weather stations located in Ireland). It seems to me that Met Eireann's web service is like scripts written for the old chestnuts that present the weather on TV. A question I would ask, is can the average punter interpret all this data provided on online services? Plus there is a variance of a few degrees between some of the major online sites. This is critical. If we have freezing conditions we still have the ice problem.

The other thing which I think is unfair to the various airports in Ireland that have been criticised for closing due to what seems to be a small amount of snow when compared to say, northen airports in the USA. Whether, 3cm or 20cm of snow falls, it still has to be cleared off the runway surface (I don't know what the mimimum amout of snow covering is safe). It takes the same amount of machinery to clear a little or a lot of snow. While this is being done the airport closes.

ArmaniJeanss

probe wrote: »

It was apparent last Friday to anyone who consulted the Norwegian or Danish met websites that Ireland was heading for a thaw. Despite this, Met Éireann continued to huff and puff out weather warnings along the lines that the freezing weather would continue for another week.

There were about 20 decent weather forecasters on the weather forum posting throughout the last week, and not one of them called the thaw for Sunday/Monday. Though a few said it was possible - we are 'on a knife-edge' was a phrase oft-used.

Its relatively easy in hindsight to look back and say the thaw was caused by warmer air from Scandanavia and should have been predicted. If one or two variables had changed in the last 48 hours we could have got even worse weather than was predicted, and someone else would have been saying that anyone who consulted the Russian/German/Czech met websites could have foreseen it.

Out of interest why didn't you post predicting this before it happened?

bmaxi

In fairness, this is one of the most difficult areas of the planet to give an accurate forecast for. Because of the maritime nature of the climate and the effects of the Gulf Stream weather conditions can fluctuate over a few hours and a few miles.
There is no point in, on the one hand criticising the authorities for not being prepared and then criticising them again for making the effort to be prepared.

amacachi

whosedaddy? wrote: »

Cause the Irish forecast showed heavy snow for Sunday. and given past experience and grit supplies running low, i'd call it a wise decision to cancel things for today.

If they hadn't cancelled things and there had been heavy snowfalls and grit running out - you would have questioned that decision as well.

better safe than sorry.
and at least someone made a decision instead of sitting on the fence :-)

What should be questioned is the quality of the forecast and the intervals of updates.

I was talking about the fact that it was decided to close the schools until Wednesday. Now the decision will be "reviewed tomorrow". Why the need to decide so early and for so many days? Had it been decided yesterday afternoon to close today (still plenty of time to alert everyone) then fair enough, of course for a lot of the country there'd be no need to be shut. Two days are lost for no reason other than politicians wanting to be seen to be doing something and making decisions.

Cookie_Monster

bmaxi wrote: »

In fairness, this is one of the most difficult areas of the planet to give an accurate forecast for. Because of the maritime nature of the climate and the effects of the Gulf Stream weather conditions can fluctuate over a few hours and a few miles.
There is no point in, on the one hand criticising the authorities for not being prepared and then criticising them again for making the effort to be prepared.

nail on the head here, it such a difficult area to predict. it could snow again tomorrow due to a slight shifting of the winds for all we know.

amacachi wrote: »

I was talking about the fact that it was decided to close the schools until Wednesday. Now the decision will be "reviewed tomorrow". Why the need to decide so early and for so many days? Had it been decided yesterday afternoon to close today (still plenty of time to alert everyone) then fair enough, of course for a lot of the country there'd be no need to be shut. Two days are lost for no reason other than politicians wanting to be seen to be doing something and making decisions.

It was a sensible precaution and allowed parent to guage the potential worse case scenario. Days off work /child care etc. If it had snowed today there would be no points against this what so ever.

Sulmac

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The Icelandic met website is a model of clarity. It gets radar data within 2 minutes and has some excellent atlantic charts together with a clear 5 day forecast.

http://en.vedur.is/

http://en.vedur.is/weather/observations/satellites/

http://en.vedur.is/weather/observations/radar/

Iceland has about the population of county Galway in total, and is bankrupt. The best Galway forecast is the BBC one from UKMO

http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/2299?&search=galway&itemsPerPage=10&region=world

I agree that the Icelandic site is probably the best. It combines information on weather, seismology, rivers and the sea into a very easy-to-use and understandable format. It is the kind of model Met Éireann should be making for their own site, which is pretty dire in comparison.

The weather maps on the Icelandic site (as in this one, the information for Icelandic towns and stations) is excellent, and Met Éireann should create a similar map using all climatological, rainfall and synoptic weather stations they own; as well as NRA roadside stations and information on air and water quality from the EPA site. Someone needs to merge many of these government agencies (or at least specific parts of them) with Met Éireann to make a proper website and mandate for them. I'd also, if possible, include Met Office and Roads Service stations in NI on such a map.

Saying that, up until quite recently the Icelandic site was also pretty bad... the old version can be found here. :pac:

Also, out of interest, is there any agency in Ireland that measures seismology [earthquakes] like in Iceland?

Sponge Bob

Sulmac wrote: »

Saying that, up until quite recently the Icelandic site was also pretty bad... the old version can be found here. :pac:

All I want from Met Eireann is a 10 minute update cycle with 5 minute lag on the Radar and a couple of exta radars in Dooncarton and in Mt Gabriel to move the forecasting horizon out to where the bloody weather usually is

I don't believe the Dublin weather forecasts because I live in the west. Met Éireann is a joke quango around here.

Just give me accurate and timely radar information and redundancy for that crappy Shannon radar.

Zoney

It was informative checking the NRA weather stations directly (Shannon, the nearest Met Eireann station, isn't much good for getting weather info for anywhere in the Midwest *not* directly on the estuary - even Limerick city weather differs a fair bit), but surely Met Éireann could incorporate this information to provide detailed local weather updates on their site?

Chris_533976

I always use the BBC weather page. Its often completely contradicts the Irish one but is usually right.

whosedaddy?

Chris_533976 wrote: »

I always use the BBC weather page. Its often completely contradicts the Irish one but is usually right.

Lets take this to the test.
For Dublin:

BBC forecasts heavy snow for tomorrow during the day and during the night.
wind 31 mph and poor visibility

Met Eireann says
Becoming very wet and windy during the day. Southeasterly winds will quickly increase strong to gale force and gusty on Tuesday morning and bring rain by early afternoon, the rain turning to sleet or snow for a time mainly on high ground. Cold

poncho000

i think what the OP is pointing out is that if other country's forecasters can predict accurately, then why cant we? As a result of our innacurate forecasts, my college exam for Monday was postponed until 18th jan, the day im due to fly out on holiday. Met eireann can go feck themselves

probe

Chris_533976 wrote: »

I always use the BBC weather page. Its often completely contradicts the Irish one but is usually right.

You must be joking! Britain is the only country in Europe that doesn't use one of the shared numerical weather forecasting models like COSMOS, HIRLAM, or ALADIN.

Michael Fish's prediction of no hurricane in England in 1987 being a classic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqs1YXfdtGE

The woman who called in had watched a weather forecast on French television......

probe

poncho000 wrote: »

i think what the OP is pointing out is that if other country's forecasters can predict accurately, then why cant we? As a result of our innacurate forecasts, my college exam for Monday was postponed until 18th jan, the day im due to fly out on holiday. Met eireann can go feck themselves

It is an issue of quality and timeliness of presentation. The Norwegian and Icelandic websites sites use the same HIRLAM model as Met Eireann. The Norwegian website is updated every hour or so for forecasts. I have no doubt that Met Eireann has access to the same level of forecasting accuracy - they just engage in a CYA fudge rather than telling the story as it is in a timely manner.

probe

BrianD wrote: »

What's wrong with this? Passengers are going to have to contact their airline to find out what arrangements need to be made.

Furthermore, when you look at the availability of web access in Ireland you have tot to ask whether "see our web site" is sufficient as a means of dessimation of information.

In regard to weather, it is fair to say that met eireanns service is pretty "wordy" when compared to the very data heavy services offered by other companies online (which must be based on weather stations located in Ireland). It seems to me that Met Eireann's web service is like scripts written for the old chestnuts that present the weather on TV. A question I would ask, is can the average punter interpret all this data provided on online services? Plus there is a variance of a few degrees between some of the major online sites. This is critical. If we have freezing conditions we still have the ice problem.

The other thing which I think is unfair to the various airports in Ireland that have been criticised for closing due to what seems to be a small amount of snow when compared to say, northen airports in the USA. Whether, 3cm or 20cm of snow falls, it still has to be cleared off the runway surface (I don't know what the mimimum amout of snow covering is safe). It takes the same amount of machinery to clear a little or a lot of snow. While this is being done the airport closes.

1) The information available at Irish airport websites (Cork being the worst) and on the arrivals and departures boards is poor in terms of resolution and timeliness.

If a flight has been cancelled, the airport website should show that fact. "contact your airline" is a stupid, lazy, statement of almost zero informational value. RTE and AA roadwatch use similar phraseology. Airport websites should be displaying a real-time flight status feed from the airline computers as http://www.flightstats.com do.

2) Ryanair's website "live flight information" is also guilty of misrepresenting the facts. This morning for Cork Airport they were showing "DELAY" in red for several flights - but when one looked at the small print, the flight in question was actually cancelled. They don't show actual times of arrival for every flight. The Aer Lingus website shows an up to date picture of every flight.

3) On more than one occasion I have been in airport lounges doing something on my PC and they forget to show "boarding" on the flight status board. This is not simply an Irish problem - it also happens occasionally at NCE.

The information infrastructure is there. The industry is showing contempt for the customer by not providing accurate timely information.

As for weather, I have been following the Norwegian website for some time, and it is generally spot on. I changed hotels the other day from a downtown hotel to an airport hotel because it forecast *** snow for the German airport I was using the following morning. When I got up and looked out the window that morning I was happy to be at the airport. When it is down to +- 1C, one has to make one's own judgement.

As far as snow removing equipment is concerned, some vested interests make it sound as if they would have to spend several billion on kit that might be only used for 3 days every decade. The average snow plough is basically a shovel attachment for a truck, tractor or even 4x4. They can also be attached to street cleaning machines. Agricultural subcontractors could do it - so could truck drivers and street cleaners.

parsi

Risks Digest had an article a few weeks ago detailing the lack of linkage (in the US) between airline websites, airport websites, 3rd party website and physical airport gate displays.

They obviously don't have the benefit of probes knowledge either

murphaph

probe wrote: »

As far as snow removing equipment is concerned, some vested interests make it sound as if they would have to spend several billion on kit that might be only used for 3 days every decade. The average snow plough is basically a shovel attachment for a truck, tractor or even 4x4. They can also be attached to street cleaning machines. Agricultural subcontractors could do it - so could truck drivers and street cleaners.

Pretty much every city of Berlin owned vehicle seems to get a basic snow plough stuck on it during this sort of weather, including bin lorries etc. They also contract landscapers etc. who buy their own attachment plough and do (usually) footpaths etc. It works well.

bmaxi

murphaph wrote: »

Pretty much every city of Berlin owned vehicle seems to get a basic snow plough stuck on it during this sort of weather, including bin lorries etc. They also contract landscapers etc. who buy their own attachment plough and do (usually) footpaths etc. It works well.

I passed a standard 10 ton sand lorry in Wicklow yesterday which had a snow shovel fitted, any fitter with a basic knowledge of hydraulics could do this.
The only problem I could see was, in the raised position the shovel completely masked the headlights. A little more planning there lads.

BrianD

Eh, nobody has said that Irish airports do not have this equipment. The fact is that it takes the same amount of time to clear a runway of a small amount of snow as a large amount. Consequently, Irish airports will close for clearing what seems a small amount of snow.

Question, how are flightstats.com gathering their info?

Probe wrote:

"contact your airline" is a stupid, lazy, statement of almost zero informational value.

On the contrary, it's the most useful piece of advice that the airport can give.

DoWhatThouWilt

Met Eireann are so obsessed with pushing their Global Warming religion I am convinced they are under reporting temps. In Athlone the other night it was -10C and the Met Eireann site said it was only -1C. That's an under reporting of 9 DEGREES!

Same is happening in the UK with the Met Ofice there. This video is a good insight into the psychology of these global warming monkies who work in the Civil Service and pray to Al Gore and how out of touch with reality they are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shk4-3CKK48

It is one thing for the met headbagers to try and defend their religious beliefs, but they are putting lives at risk. One of the reasons we had no grit during the recent cold weather is that CoCos around the country were told to expect mild winters by Met Eireann.

Random

(posting to subscribe on mobile theme)

probe

murphaph wrote: »

Pretty much every city of Berlin owned vehicle seems to get a basic snow plough stuck on it during this sort of weather, including bin lorries etc. They also contract landscapers etc. who buy their own attachment plough and do (usually) footpaths etc. It works well.

It is the same virtually everywhere on the continent. They are out early to plough the snow out of the way using every possible vehicle with show ploughs in the front and often with a "corkscrew" shaped rotary brush attachment on the rear to brush up the fine snow that the bucket scraper can't catch.

There is very little reliance on grit and salt compared with Ireland. The grit ends up in the drains when it rains and blocks them leading to flooding which freezes into ice and creates a vicious circle.

YOU MUST CLEAN THE SNOW OUT OF THE PATHWAY OF VEHICLES AND PEDESTRIANS. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE - OTHERWISE YOU END UP WITH GRIDLOCK AND THE COUNTRY GRINDING TO A HALT.

Snow ploughing can take place at 50 + km/h - each machine can cover a lot of ground. The movement of traffic during the day will keep the snow from re-accumulating after it has been cleared first thing.

In extreme cases you can have "gating" programmes in the traffic light control system. Gating gives a red light to all traffic attempting to enter an arterial route while it is being ploughed during the day (during heavy daytime snowfalls). This empties the road of vehicular traffic while the snow ploughs do their job. While it creates congestion on side roads, it is only temporary - eg for about 10 minutes. Put gardai at the traffic lights on the side roads and give everyone who honks a €100 fine, and everyone who drives through a red light €200 fine... pay for the snow ploughing!

parsi

Whilst our European counterparts are more advanced it is simplistic to say that they have a lesser reliance on grit etc.

Practically every German newscast during their cold-spell showed gritters and gritters getting refilled for use on the roads. In fact just like here there were worries raised about running out of grit and we did see reports in the French Media that Brittany had run out of salt.

Of course we also have the ongoing saga in Berlin of the S-Bahn and its multitude of woes with the current woe being the inability of the EMUs to function in snow (same procedure as previous years) leading to a third of their fleet being off the rails.

Chris_533976

Also snow ploughs dont work too well here because the flatness of our road surfaces, apart from the motorways, is apalling.

Seriously, if the current single carriageway parts of say the N7 had a foot of snow on them, no snowplough would be able to risk ploughing it. Either the road would get dug up or the plough ruined.

probe

parsi wrote: »

Whilst our European counterparts are more advanced it is simplistic to say that they have a lesser reliance on grit etc.

Practically every German newscast during their cold-spell showed gritters and gritters getting refilled for use on the roads. In fact just like here there were worries raised about running out of grit and we did see reports in the French Media that Brittany had run out of salt.

In my experience they use far less grit and do far more snow clearing on the continent. Ireland gets tiny amounts of snow which could be cleared easily. I was in Munich recently, snow all over the place, and the only grit I came across was a tiny amount on a pedestrian area near where the Kempinski hotel has a largely covered walkway to the terminals. The guy did a ploughing job too but the machine didn't have the brushes on the back to remove the fine snow particles.

As far as the Berlin S-Bahn is concerned, snow doesn't seem to affect the Zurich or other Swiss S-Bahns or railway services generally there. One wonders if they need snow ploughs on the Berlin S-Bahnen or do the points need to be heated as they are in CH?

probe

whosedaddy? wrote: »

Lets take this to the test.
For Dublin:

BBC forecasts heavy snow for tomorrow during the day and during the night.
wind 31 mph and poor visibility

Met Eireann says
Becoming very wet and windy during the day. Southeasterly winds will quickly increase strong to gale force and gusty on Tuesday morning and bring rain by early afternoon, the rain turning to sleet or snow for a time mainly on high ground. Cold

The Norwegian site http://www.yr.no/place/Ireland/Cork/Cork/hour_by_hour.html forecast 31.2 mm of rain for Cork last Tuesday (12th). The actual rainfall turned out to be 31.5 mm according to http://www.met.ie/climate/daily-data.asp.

I heard the City Manager talking about flooding on the Lee Road/Fields as a result (one assumes that snow melting added 10 to 15 mm of rainfall equivalent into the river catchment). He spoke of this as a normal acceptable event!

The ESB clearly paid little or no attention to the rainfall issues leading up to the 12th and simply dumped water in an unplanned way because they again allowed the reservoir to get overfilled.

The Norwegians can forecast average windspeeds for Ireland to the nearest m/s for each 3 hours of the day for virtually every part of the country, ditto for rainfall and pressure, and temperatures on an hour by hour basis.

Accurate forecast data is available to the ESB, local authorities, and everybody else to plan around - even if Met Eireann is incapable of presenting it in a clear, precise manner.

As far as the BBC's forecast for Dublin on 12.1.2010 is concerned, the total actual precipitation was only 6.5 mm, max temp 3.8, min 0.8 C and the windspeed averaged 22 "knots", gusting to 44 "knots" per Met Eireann. 44 antiquated Met Eireann "knots" = 50 of the BBC's antiquated "miles per hour".

Both Met Eireann and the BBC are wordy wafflers. Visibility is measured in km - poor visibility is 1km or less. Clear sky = 25 to 30+ km. Heavy snow is 30cm+ in my books.

probe

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Also snow ploughs dont work too well here because the flatness of our road surfaces, apart from the motorways, is apalling.

Seriously, if the current single carriageway parts of say the N7 had a foot of snow on them, no snowplough would be able to risk ploughing it. Either the road would get dug up or the plough ruined.

If you have a bumpy road you set the plough higher, travel slower over poorer road surfaces, and you need a bigger brush at the back to compensate in terms of cleaning up capability.

999/112

Probe, +1 on www.yr.no/ I use it a fair bit and find that it is very accurate.
Here is another site [irish] that is also pretty good. www.askmoby.com/

BrianD

probe wrote: »

The Norwegian site

The ESB clearly paid little or no attention to the rainfall issues leading up to the 12th and simply dumped water in an unplanned way because they again allowed the reservoir to get overfilled.

That's a bit of a sweeping statement to make. You don't know this and the facts of the matter don't support it either. In a recent interview the ESB spokesman described how they manage the reservoir. They dump, as you say, water when the reservoir and pressure n the dam reach certain critical points. If you recall, there was a large amount of rainfall in a matter of days so there was little or no planning that can be done. I can only conclude by your statement is that the ESB should have been releasing water in advance of the rains. I can't see how this would have helped the situation other than bringing it forward.

It seems to me that those downstream either didn't listen to the ESB warnings, didn't understand them or miscalculated the effect of the releases from the ESB combined with other water feeding in the river.

parsi

DoWhatThouWilt wrote: »

Met Eireann are so obsessed with pushing their Global Warming religion I am convinced they are under reporting temps. In Athlone the other night it was -10C and the Met Eireann site said it was only -1C. That's an under reporting of 9 DEGREES!.

Strange. I seem to recall massive reporting of very low temperature figures on all the news bulletins.

This link even shows graphically the extremely low temps in the Phoenix Park

http://www.met.ie/metadmin/useruploads/file/Dec-Jan%20Cold%20Spell.pdf

probe

BrianD wrote: »

That's a bit of a sweeping statement to make. You don't know this and the facts of the matter don't support it either. In a recent interview the ESB spokesman described how they manage the reservoir. They dump, as you say, water when the reservoir and pressure n the dam reach certain critical points. If you recall, there was a large amount of rainfall in a matter of days so there was little or no planning that can be done. I can only conclude by your statement is that the ESB should have been releasing water in advance of the rains. I can't see how this would have helped the situation other than bringing it forward.

It seems to me that those downstream either didn't listen to the ESB warnings, didn't understand them or miscalculated the effect of the releases from the ESB combined with other water feeding in the river.

The ESB generates very little electricity from hydro - the equivalent of a few windmills in the case of the River Lee. The flood risks and costs are out of all proportion to the value of the electricity. The Inniscarra dam system should be kept almost empty in winter (when rainfall is higher) - just enough to provide a secure water supply.

This issue has been discussed recently in
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055751080

probe

DoWhatThouWilt wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shk4-3CKK48

Good video of an overpaid waffling ejit in action....