Storm Ali : Weds 19 Sept 2018

coillsaille

JCX BXC wrote: »

I'm not sure lowering the flagpoles is the answer. Is a gust of 120km/h really worthy of a national shutdown?

No easy answers I suppose but there are two aspects of the warning system that need improving in my opinion:

1. Not factoring in time of year and things like tree foliage. (Like MT said above, orange in September was always going to be more damaging.)

2. More specific geographic zones, the counties are too imprecise and too varied in size.

If no. 2 was looked at then it would rarely necessitate a national shutdown. The western half of Co. Galway, including the city, should have been shut down for a few hours Wednesday morning.

Edit: Maybe other places too but only speaking for the area I was in.

JCX BXC

I'm in Galway city at the moment, so I know only too well how it was (I will say however that Ophelia in West Clare was worse than Ali in Galway, however Ophelia did not strike bad here). I'd agree more consideration needs to be given to things like tree foilage, but there is no easy answer. I bet theres people in some county currently wondering what all the fuss is about as they didn't get the storm as expected!

I believe a better way to go would be more coordination between MÉ and other state agencies. Perhaps businesses should be directed to close by the NECG (for example), in areas where they are most susceptible to the orange warning. A blanket red is in my opinion unwise for marginal storms in which we don't know how they will hit.

coillsaille

JCX BXC wrote: »

I'm in Galway city at the moment, so I know only too well how it was (I will say however that Ophelia in West Clare was worse than Ali in Galway, however Ophelia did not strike bad here). I'd agree more consideration needs to be given to things like tree foilage, but there is no easy answer. I bet theres people in some county currently wondering what all the fuss is about as they didn't get the storm as expected!

I believe a better way to go would be more coordination between MÉ and other state agencies. Perhaps businesses should be directed to close by the NECG (for example), in areas where they are most susceptible to the orange warning. A blanket red is in my opinion unwise for marginal storms in which we don't know how they will hit.

I fully agree and said something similar in the thread on Wednesday. Some state agency needs to issue instructions that will at least prevent children being out and walking by trees that at the time have a very high probability of falling. Which is some of what I saw that morning.

Hotblack Desiato

Businesses can't be directed to close even in red warning areas. Schools can.

Tombo2001

Sycamore Tree wrote: »

I would blame the parents for walking the children along a road with large trees (on one side for about 100m) when ME had an Orange alert with damaging gusts predicted. Who do you blame? Maybe the parents need to go to school?

So who would you blame when the parents are at work, and the kids are being walked home by a brazilian child minder who doesnt speak good English and has never heard of Met Eireann?

Because thats real life.

Tombo2001

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

Met Eireann's description of an orange warning: "This category of ORANGE level weather warnings is for weather conditions which have the capacity to impact significantly on people in the affected areas. The issue of an Orange level weather warning implies that all recipients in the affected areas should prepare themselves in an appropriate way for the anticipated conditions."

The word "dangerous" might not specifically be used, but anyone who reads that and doesn't pick up that there might be dangerous weather conditions needs their head seen to.

'Damaging' is a considerably different word to 'dangerous'. 'Damaging' could be a few bins falling over. It is vague. Dangerous is a much stronger and more specific word.

Dangerous is the word used by several punters here when referring to Met Eireann reports, because it is the word of choice if you want to indicate that it might actually be .....'dangerous'.....; but actually that word was never part of any forecast.

Sycamore Tree

Tombo2001 wrote: »

So who would you blame when the parents are at work, and the kids are being walked home by a brazilian child minder who doesnt speak good English and has never heard of Met Eireann?

Because thats real life.

The parents. :P

Sycamore Tree

Oneiric 3

Tombo2001 wrote: »

So who would you blame when the parents are at work, and the kids are being walked home by a brazilian child minder who doesnt speak good English and has never heard of Met Eireann?

Because thats real life.

Is it??

JCX BXC

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Businesses can't be directed to close even in red warning areas. Schools can.

Recommended to close. Some businesses, especially smaller family run ones, will inevitably remain open through whatever weather presents itself.

Doctor Jimbob

Tombo2001 wrote: »

'Damaging' is a considerably different word to 'dangerous'. 'Damaging' could be a few bins falling over. It is vague. Dangerous is a much stronger and more specific word.

Dangerous is the word used by several punters here when referring to Met Eireann reports, because it is the word of choice if you want to indicate that it might actually be .....'dangerous'.....; but actually that word was never part of any forecast.

"weather conditions which have the capacity to impact significantly on people in the affected areas"

"all recipients in the affected areas should prepare themselves in an appropriate way for the anticipated conditions"

I don't know why you're focusing on single words. To me the two sentences above make it perfectly clear that there's a risk of dangerous conditions.

spookwoman

https://twitter.com/NewstalkFM/status/1043166260165586944

Gaoth Laidir

This was the ECMWF's Extreme Forecast Index for gusts from Ali. Everywhere was equally likely to see gusts above average for the time of year. It's a probabilistic metric, not quantitive, so in this case it didn't differentiate between the west and the rest of the country.

https://twitter.com/ECMWF/status/1043157851433259008?s=19

spookwoman

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

This was the ECMWF's Extreme Forecast Index for gusts from Ali. Everywhere was equally likely to see gusts above average for the time of year. It's a probabilistic metric, not quantitive, so in this case it didn't differentiate between the west and the rest of the country.

https://twitter.com/ECMWF/status/1043157851433259008?s=19

Link not working

TomOnBoard

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

I get both sides of this debate about the orange/red thing, certainly agree it's essentially each person's own decision what to do ........

.......... The only cases where this fails to happen, I think, would be those orange alerts that prove to be yellow alerts with bits of orange.

For some reason I am now hungry and must have dessert.

As always, an excellent, informative post.

However, I'd lay off the desserts around 03:00, lest the dreaded Yellow obesity warning from the GP moves into the Red, bypassing Orange entirely. :P

Gaoth Laidir

spookwoman wrote: »

Link not working

Try this...

https://twitter.com/ECMWF/status/1043157851433259008?s=19

sryanbruen

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

Try this...

https://twitter.com/ECMWF/status/1043157851433259008?s=19

Still not working.

Is it this?

https://twitter.com/ECMWF/status/1043167826918420480

ForestFire

sryanbruen wrote: »

Still not working.

Is it this?

So it was a RED event, I knew it:D:D

blanch152

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

By the way, today's weather event has been given the name Bronagh, it only seems likely to bring any significant wind gusts in southern and eastern England though. I'm not sure how to say Bronagh in my mind, does it rhyme with bag or law?

... so this is Bronagh,

it's only some rain,

you'd have to go further

to feel any pain ...

I don't think anyone has answered your question as to how to pronounce
"Bronagh"

Two syllables.

Bro-nagh

(1) Bro as in bro.
(2) Nagh pronounced as "na" as in banana with slightly elongated a.

Gaoth Laidir

sryanbruen wrote: »

Still not working.

Is it this?

https://twitter.com/ECMWF/status/1043167826918420480

Yes.

Meteorite58

Was in Tralee town park today, littered with fallen branches and a couple of trees from the Storm.

Would take a couple days to collect and pulp them I'd reckon.

Ultimate Seduction

Tombo2001 wrote: »

So who would you blame when the parents are at work, and the kids are being walked home by a brazilian child minder who doesnt speak good English and has never heard of Met Eireann?

Because thats real life.

Real life for who? I don't know anyone who has or had a Brazilian child minder, or any nationality actually, that doesn't speak a word of English. I can't think of any sane parent who would have someone like that mine school going kids.

Why make stuff up?

donal.hunt

I actually know plenty of people who have partners (male or female or other) that have really poor English (common in the larger tech companies).

However they are all motivated to learn and the larger tech companies support language lessons not just for the employee but also family members since it's a good way to ensure attrition is low.

In the short term, partners typically aren't working so the au pair thing isn't a thing in my opinion. But it could be once the family is further down the line (and English isn't the first language at home).

Now - Can we get back to talking about Ali?

Mods - worth closing this one?

TomOnBoard

Before its closed, could I ask that the next one that's opened for a particular event specifically bans all the silly arguments about whether:

a) The Red warnings should be Orange or Orange should be Red etc. etc.
b) Met Eireann got it all wrong because my neighbour's cat was able to go outside;
c) I don't want to go to work so why doesn't Evelyn arrange a Red warning;
d) etc. etc.

All the ould guff makes these Weather threads tedious and argumentative when some of us are on here just to get or give information about how our particular neck of the woods are affected in a particular situation. In fact, if it wasn't for a few very knowledgeable folks like MTC, I wouldn't even bother, but the kind of information that MTC and a few others give makes it worthwhile.

Discodog

The obvious question is do we need two threads per event ? One for chat & one for forecasts & technical information. I agree that it can be a pain to scroll through lots of chat posts to find the latest updates etc.

As for ME I think they did all they could. Maybe they underestimated the effect of the time of year as most of the damaged was caused by trees still in leaf. I am sure that storms will get earlier & stronger. I also suspect that most people get their forecasts from the more light hearted sources. For example Newstalk weather forecasts are so vague as to be pointless.

I drove for an hour on Wednesday & did six hours work outdoors, without any problem. But I deliberately chose a route avoiding trees

PS I would add that I think the warning system will always lead to complacency. Red warning, schools closed & the local conditions don't warrant it. The next red will be ignored. I think that this might of been one of the problems in Galway as people expected Ophelia to be bad & it wasn't - compared to Ali. We expect windy days in the West so it's easy for people to think that it will just be another windy day.

JCX BXC

I think all MÉ bashing and conversation about warning levels should be removed from event threads. I'm actually interested in chat, people perhaps discussing how the event had an effect on them and a more lighthearted discussion. I, and many others, have little time for the pedantic "RED ORANGE YELLOW" discussion that so many are fixated on.

Have avoided this thread and likely interesting information since the storm ended as it's full of petulance.

Discodog

Cheer up Mods - there's the Snow threads to look forward to :pac:

Discodog

JCX BXC wrote: »

I think all Mbashing and conversation about warning levels should be removed from event threads. I'm actually interested in chat, people perhaps discussing how the event had an effect on them and a more lighthearted discussion. I, and many others, have little time for the pedantic "RED ORANGE YELLOW" discussion that so many are fixated on.

Have avoided this thread and likely interesting information since the storm ended as it's full of petulance.

I think that's why we need to have two threads. I have no interest in chat. I need forecast information. Maybe an "After Hours" section for the lighthearted ?

jimmynokia

comments seem to vanishing here like a good thing whatever happend to constructive chat. ie james madden spewing his usual rubbish and media cashing in for clicks..

mirrorwall14

I like the chat and technical threads but the chat threads for the last year at least have descended into rows and debates about warning levels and criticism before the events have even finished which has really put me off the forum. I used to browse daily particularly in winter but I don’t as much anymore

I truly believe those debates should be in a dedicated thread and the chat thread discussion of local conditions etc. Pages and pages of over and back about warnings levels, rehashing arguments has multiple times before is not interesting to read and detracts from the brilliant local reporting and photography that can appear in those threads