Storm Ali : Weds 19 Sept 2018

Donegal Storm

Do we have to do this whole tiresome debate every single time we have a bit of weather..?


Some huge showers here on the Donegal coast for the past couple of hours, conditions worse than during the storm earlier with plenty of hail and strong squally gusts, feels more like a late November night

spookwoman

Gaoth Laidir

Microwave scans of surface winds over the past 24 hours (the satellite-overpass times are given on the bottom of each image).

ForestFire

SleetAndSnow wrote: »

Mace head is in a very remote area, which you can see via google maps and right on the open atlantic coast. It shouldn't be used to determine red alerts alone for big areas.

Next nearest stations would be athenry or Newport, both of which recorded below the red level wind warnings, and were 20-30km/h below mace head.

Come on I could say the same about Roches Point, it is remote area and should not be used and cork airport recorded 30km below it also??

Both Clifden and Galway city are as exposed on the west coast similar to Mace head just to the north and south of it.

This storm had about 20KM more average wind speed across all stations to Ophelia as per the previous comparison.

Just saying there needs to be quicker actions to raise the alerts, not a 10-11am when everyone is at school, work, collage.

Galway could have got an early morning higher alert, before people left their homes. Not necessarily red, but a warning that red conditions were possible over the next few hours?

Victor Meldrew

Trebor176 wrote: »

Am I the only one thinking that there was more damage reported today than with Ophelia?

In the bits of South Dublin I saw today? Yep. Way more trees down or big boughs broken.

And were it not for cars being "At work" there would have been a lot more crushed in suburban roads. Our road was blocked by several boughs. Movable if you were a big chap..

Council were out chipping the lot...

There was not much of a sea swell or rain in the east, that makes a massive difference.

But then so do early storms when the trees have all their leaves..

SleetAndSnow

ForestFire wrote: »

Come on I could say the same about Roches Point, it is remote area and should not be used and cork airport recorded 30km below it also??

Both Clifden and Galway city are as exposed on the west coast similar to Mace head just to the north and south of it.

This storm had about 20KM more average wind speed across all stations to Ophelia as per the previous comparison.

Just saying there needs to be quicker actions to raise the alerts, not a 10-11am when everyone is at school, work, collage.

Galway could have got an early morning higher alert, before people left their homes. Not necessarily red, but a warning that red conditions were possible over the next few hours?

Roches point is basically a 10 minute drive from Cobh, less for a storm system. And just across the bay from Carrigaline, bit different then mace head. And i agree with you, I was just stating that it wasn't a red because it was below their threshold.

Also in that comparision it is mostly west coast stations above Ophelia. The few south/east ones mentioned are either equal (dublin airport) or below Ophelia (cork, johnstown, sherkin etc)

JanuarySnowstor

Well for someone who can be critical of Met Eireann I think they called it correctly. The media and public were suffering from cry wolf after previous events.
The ploughing championships should have been aware that orange level winds were going to be destructive.
I mean c'mon the widespread damage must have been obvious at 9am yet it took 3 more hours before it was cancelled.
Very sad about the tragic loss of life relationship to ali

JanuarySnowstor

Well for someone who can be critical of Met Eireann I think they called it correctly. The media and public were suffering from cry wolf after previous events.
The ploughing championships should have been aware that orange level winds were going to be destructive.
I mean c'mon the widespread damage must have been obvious at 9am yet it took 3 more hours before it was cancelled.
Very sad about the tragic loss of life relationship to ali

spookwoman

Was the met eireann stand flattened at the ploughing championships?

MJohnston

There's not enough weather station coverage in the west to be able to judge whether red-level winds actually occurred or not in more places than just Mace Head.

However, I feel like that's a bad way of actually measuring the quality of the weather alert that was given out. It's easy to justify conservative warning alerts when the outcome is lower than the worst case, and it's easy to justify more liberally applied alerts when the outcome is closer to worst case.

There's probably no good objective way to say "was this level of alert necessary?" but imo, a better measure is to look at what charts and data Met Eireann were seeing when they gave those alerts. In this case some charts pointed to Red level and some others to Orange for parts of the west, and ME went with Orange. In reality the effects might well have warranted a red level warning, but arguably the orange was fair for a lot of people too. So it was a bit of a wash, for me, with how ME performed on these warnings, although I was slightly surprised they stuck with Orange given an array of charts were definitely suggesting red-levels of winds.

As to how they updated their weather warnings, honestly to me it seems like they were hedging their bets a little bit, they inserted language at a particular stage that clearly referred to more red levels of severity, but they didn't change the colour. I think they probably realised it should have been red for certain areas at some point but decided to hold off on an upgrade for some reason, just adding that additional warning language.

ZX7R

ForestFire wrote: »

Come on I could say the same about Roches Point, it is remote area and should not be used and cork airport recorded 30km below it also??

Both Clifden and Galway city are as exposed on the west coast similar to Mace head just to the north and south of it.

This storm had about 20KM more average wind speed across all stations to Ophelia as per the previous comparison.

Just saying there needs to be quicker actions to raise the alerts, not a 10-11am when everyone is at school, work, collage.

Galway could have got an early morning higher alert, before people left their homes. Not necessarily red, but a warning that red conditions were possible over the next few hours?

I could be wrong on this but didn't only one or two max gusts actually reach criteria of red, but if that is the case then if the rest of the criteria were not met ,so no red warning should or would be given
Personally I believe met earann did a good job with there warnings, orange warnings were in place since yesterday morning and continuously updated

DOCARCH

spookwoman wrote: »

Was the met eireann stand flattened at the ploughing championships?

They packed their's away last night for safe keeping....:cool:

MJohnston

JanuarySnowstor wrote: »

Well for someone who can be critical of Met Eireann I think they called it correctly. The media and public were suffering from cry wolf after previous events.

Sorry to leap on your post in particular, but this is why I think the "cry wolf" effect is a load of nonsense. Because what previous events would lead to that? ME had the heatwave warnings spot on, they had the snow warnings spot on, and they had the warnings for the many winter storms we had last year spot on. I think most people accepted that Ophelia was a damaging and dangerous storm and that the red level was pretty much justified (if not country-wide necessarily).


And yet, there's still a fear of this 'crying wolf' effect. Like I said before, I think the Irish are just prone to ignoring weather warnings (and things similar to weather warnings), even if they were constantly accurate and helpful. I don't think it's a consideration ME should be making.

Beechwoodspark

So they need to have more westerly stations to get more accurate readings?

sryanbruen

Data is provisional for Ali but here's a comparison of selected Irish stations' maximum wind gusts (km/h) for Darwin, Ophelia and Ali. Ophelia was stronger to the south and east like I thought whilst the opposite for Ali. Darwin was the biggest beast though!

Thanks GL for providing the data there, you saved me some time in producing this .



Data comes from Met Éireann.

coillsaille wrote: »

Great table Sryan. Just wondering if there's any way of finding out the various coloured warnings issued for each one?

Edit: Can't recall right now when the coloured warnings were introduced so maybe some of the storms in the table predate it.

If I can and have time, I'll research the old threads and the web for you on this. I'll show when it's completed.

SleetAndSnow

While I loved weather back in 2014 (not as much as now though), I have 0 recollection of Darwin even happening. Makes me sad.

Dick Pickle

Will ME be apologising at 9.30 especially to the poor boggers whose day was ruined at their festival?

Ultimate Seduction

This is nonsense about these warnings lads. Will 10kmh really make a difference? Do people suddenly become more in danger because the wind was 10kmh more than forecast? FFS we were told there would be strong winds and to take care. What more do you want

pad199207

Dick Pickle wrote: »

Will ME be apologising at 9.30 especially to the poor boggers whose day was ruined at their festival?

It wasn’t met eireanns fault. The organizers of the event knew that heavy winds was on the way. They should have called the second day yesterday evening knowing that an orange level was in effect and told people not to travel due to health and safety.

Cork Boy 53

sryanbruen wrote: »

Data is provisional for Ali but here's a comparison of selected Irish stations' maximum wind gusts (km/h) for Darwin, Ophelia and Ali. Ophelia was stronger to the south and east like I thought whilst the opposite for Ali. Darwin was the biggest beast though!

Thanks GL for providing the data there, you saved me some time in producing this .



Data comes from Met Éireann.



If I can and have time, I'll research the old threads and the web for you on this. I'll show when it's completed.

So only Roches Point recorded the strongest gusts from Ophelia compared to Ali and Darwin. Considering all the publicity Ophelia got in the media compared to the others it does seem odd.

Beechwoodspark

Dick Pickle wrote: »

Will ME be apologising at 9.30 especially to the poor boggers whose day was ruined at their festival?

Don’t forget all the “Dublin howyas” that attend the ploughing too. Place does be mobbed by them dick!

sryanbruen

Cork Boy 53 wrote: »

So only Roches Point recorded the strongest gusts from Ophelia compared to Ali and Darwin. Considering all the publicity Ophelia got in the media compared to the others it does seem odd.

It does seem odd when you initially look at that. I think Ophelia was more impressive in terms of 10-minute mean wind speeds (that chart was of maximum wind gusts).

Artane2002

sryanbruen wrote: »

It does seem odd when you initially look at that. I think Ophelia was more impressive in terms of 10-minute mean wind speeds (that chart was of maximum wind gusts).

And it was also a hurricane so close to our shores so that makes it particularly unique hence more media attention (ie. HURRICANE TO LASH IRELAND!)

JanuarySnowstor

Very odd forecast there.
Not even one word about the day gone by

sryanbruen

Artane2002 wrote: »

And it was also a hurricane so close to our shores so that makes it particularly unique hence more media attention (ie. HURRICANE TO LASH IRELAND!)

Would probably explain the publicity for Helene also.

Hurrache

JanuarySnowstor wrote: »

Very odd forecast there.
Not even one word about the day gone by

It was windy


It's a forecast, not a postmortem.

Beechwoodspark

JanuarySnowstor wrote: »

Very odd forecast there.
Not even one word about the day gone by

It’s almost as if they are embarrassed about how it all went and want to bury it at this stage

Doctors room ghost

Hadn’t a spark of power from 8am to 6:30pm.was looing for the tae.all good now.was boiling with the temper earlier.no point complaining now.hope ye all survived it with minimal damage.onwards and upwards.

brooke 2

EdgeCase wrote: »

That system also didn't seem to be as predictable as Ophelia. We had more focus on Helene than Ali which seemed to just come out of the blue in the forecasts as everyone in the media had been tracking Helene which turned out to be relatively uneventful.

Ophelia seemed to be far more obvious and there was a long run up to it which allows planning.
This was definitely more of a sense of being taken off guard.

Wasn't MÉ very annoyed with US forecasters a few weeks ago when they said a hurrricane was due to hit Ireland in a few weeks time? Looks like they have egg on their face. For some reason, they seemed determined to downplay the seriousness of Ali. I thought Joanna Donnelly was very restrained, even uncomfortable, on the news this evening when talking about all the damage done by Ali.

ZX7R

brooke 2 wrote: »

Wasn't MÉ very annoyed with US forecasters a few weeks ago when they said a hurrricane was due to hit Ireland in a few weeks time? Looks like they have egg on their face. For some reason, they seemed determined to downplay the seriousness of Ali. I thought Joanna Donnelly was very restrained, even uncomfortable, on the news this evening when talking about all the damage done by Ali.

Why would they have egg on there face,seen as the American forecasters where talking about a totally different weather system than Ali