Does The Uk Government Take Weather Seriously?

[CardiffStorm]

I completely unnderstand that the met office does absolutely brilliant work and any forcasting system on the scale as in the USA would be a bit of a waste of money and resources. However, many of the more advanced and specialist forcasts e.g. aviation and more upto date radar are generally only available to commercial users as fairly high costs. Information given to the general public seems somewhat watered down. What about other private weather organisations that also do brilliant work, do they not deserve some govt. funding?

Also, the managment of the effects of severe weather in the UK seems pretty bad and this surely can only be down to the government.

[Phil UK]

Here neither, mate! :huh:

What?? You don't want Andy Murray back mate?? We'll trade him you for a white Christmas.

Phil.

[Methuselah]

What?? You don't want Andy Murray back mate?? We'll trade him you for a white Christmas.

Phil.

:huh: Phil

I'm as English as you are!

[J10]

What about other private weather organisations that also do brilliant work, do they not deserve some govt. funding?

Bluntly I disagree.

It could be argued of course the UKMO model and ECMWF (based in reading) models are the best in the business.

Also, the managment of the effects of severe weather in the UK seems pretty bad and this surely can only be down to the government.

What do you mean by this.

[CardiffStorm]

well after severe weather such as heavy rain there is obviously a huge risk of flash flooding and emergency services etc dont seem to realise this or if they do they do not react to the risk. For example, where I live, a few weeks ago there was very heavy rain that had been predicted and for which warnings were issued. When the local stream/river then flooded the emergency services and council seemed utterly surprised and did not know what to do. This may just be a local issue where I live, i dont know if its the same in other areas but surely the UK government should be doing more to get warnings, funding for training, and broadcasting of warnings to local councils and emergency services.

[J10]

well after severe weather such as heavy rain there is obviously a huge risk of flash flooding and emergency services etc dont seem to realise this or if they do they do not react to the risk. For example, where I live, a few weeks ago there was very heavy rain that had been predicted and for which warnings were issued. When the local stream/river then flooded the emergency services and council seemed utterly surprised and did not know what to do. This may just be a local issue where I live, i dont know if its the same in other areas but surely the UK government should be doing more to get warnings, funding for training, and broadcasting of warnings to local councils and emergency services.

I am sorry I just don't agree with this, the rain in the Valleys was intense and wasn't predicted in the amount it came down. Funding is in place, and over the years millions have been spent on flood defences on rivers and in coastal districts in an attempt to minimise flooding. The Met office has improved dramatically the flood warning system in recent years, but flash flooding is difficult to pinpoint

In an extremely cruel twist of fate, work was meant to start on flood defences, the Monday after the flood occurred in some districts in the Valleys.

I know that many of the districts effected are not affluent and many could not afford insurance ( or for that matter could not get insurance), and my heart really does goes out to those effected as it has caused real hardship and suffering.

[johnholmes]

surely the UK government should be doing more to get warnings, funding for training, and broadcasting of warnings to local councils and emergency services.

there is a perfectly good system of warnings to local and national government , and of course to all the emergency services designated as being part of the emergency reaction teams, to cover all weather situations-updated after the floods of 2007. It includes a storm warning also for the areas likely to be affected by sea storm surges.

you may be right that some local authorities do not appear to react as some residents feel they should-then they/you, if it applies, need to make comment/complain to them.

Edited July 4, 2009 by johnholmes

[Thundery wintry showers]

What about other private weather organisations that also do brilliant work, do they not deserve some govt. funding?

Also, the managment of the effects of severe weather in the UK seems pretty bad and this surely can only be down to the government.

The first sentence is IMHO analogous to saying that private alternatives to the NHS deserve some government funding. The Met Office is essentially a public weather service- just like the NZ Met Service, Meteo France etc- and just like with healthcare, independent people are perfectly entitled to set up their own private weather services just like with the alternatives to the NHS- the difference being that private weather organisations tend to offer prices that are affordable to most people. This in my view is actually a very good arrangement as it means that the MetO has some competition, which in turn gives an additional incentive for them to continue improving the quality of their service.

I don't think it's unreasonable that the other weather companies don't get direct govt funding simply because they're in the private rather than public sector.

I do agree to a limited extent with the second sentence but much of it comes from local councils' ineptitude not the central government. However it should also be remembered that on occasion a weather event can turn up that is so immense that even a well-organised, quick-thinking council would not be able to avert much of the resulting carnage- there is a limit to what they can do. Some of it stems from poor urban planning from decades ago, e.g. mass development on flood plains. With regards the Met Office, I think the MetO's forecasting is better for southern Britain than for northern Britain and the latter is something that could be improved, but for the most part their warnings tend to be good at the critical moments as has been implied in some earlier posts.

Re the title, surely if the Government didn't care about the weather, it would have privatised the Met Office by now?

[Cookie]

I think the met office do a great and a hard job well.

as many of you know we get very bad atlantic storms in the winter and the met office issues warnings to the counicl and are passed on to local bussiness. due to a high red alert back in january the co-op was closed early in anticpition of 100 mph plus winds. it would not have been closed with out the met office and people could have inured or killed like january 2005. what got the mangers closeing the shop was me showing people the met office red warning and the statment saying something like threat to life.

they take met office weather warnings very seriously up here, everything closed around 7pm buses are cancelled, shops shut and roads closed.

[I can't believe it's not better]

Generally I think where government is going wrong with respect to extreme precipitation, is housing and putting houses in the wrong places. It's pretty obvious that some places will flood, because they always have. I guess the reason being is money. Sometimes of course, there's just too much tarmac and too many roofs.

Last year or maybe the year before, there was something in the news about a council somewhere, possibly in south Wales, encouraging or maybe forbidding tarmacing driveways to prevent run-off. They wanted gravel only, makes sense. I can't remember where that was.

I noticed some flash weather warnings of heavy rain recently from the Met Office, which were 'forecasted' rather than during the event, which is new I think.

[Phil UK]

Not really, ICBITB. There has always been extreme precip at times but when you build on flood plains, which is natural absorbtion, the water has nowhere to drain, hence the more reported sudden floods in recent years.

Phil.