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Should The Uk Install Tornado/storm Sirens?


Mesoscale

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Posted
  • Location: Watford, Hertfordshire, 68.7m ASL
  • Weather Preferences: Humid Continental Climate (Dfa / Dfb)
  • Location: Watford, Hertfordshire, 68.7m ASL

Do we get enough severe weather to implement sirens?, how much severe weather goes unnoticed? and how many times does severe weather kill people in the uk? is there anywhere in the uk that has sirens for any kind of weather? excluding golf courses etc

Would sirens get the message through to people that the weather can be deadly?

how much of a nuisance would they be and would they cost to much to maintain?

I dont know i would kind of like to see some around and sometimes hear them.

What are your thoughts?

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

Not enough of any severity to warrant an alarm or warning systems I would think.

Largest Tornado Outbreak

The largest tornado outbreak in Britain is also the largest tornado outbreak known anywhere in Europe. On November 23, 1981, 105 tornadoes were spawned by a cold front in the space of 5.25 hours. Excepting Derbyshire, every county in a triangular area from Gwynedd to Humberside to Essex was hit by at least one tornado, while Norfolk was hit by at least 13. Very fortunately most tornadoes were short-lived and also weak (the strongest was around T5 on the TORRO Tornado Scale) and no deaths occurred.

www.torro.org.uk

1950: Tornado sweeps southern England

news.bbc.co.uk

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Posted
  • Location: Watford, Hertfordshire, 68.7m ASL
  • Weather Preferences: Humid Continental Climate (Dfa / Dfb)
  • Location: Watford, Hertfordshire, 68.7m ASL

Turns out that the may 21st 1950 tornado tracked just north of were i live today!

Up untill now yes maybee the tornadic/storm activity hasn't been alot but with people talking about 'global warming' etc maybee the weather will get more powerful over time! who knows!

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Posted
  • Location: Bexley (home), C London (work)
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms
  • Location: Bexley (home), C London (work)

Do we get enough severe weather to implement sirens?, how much severe weather goes unnoticed? and how many times does severe weather kill people in the uk? is there anywhere in the uk that has sirens for any kind of weather? excluding golf courses etc

Would sirens get the message through to people that the weather can be deadly?

how much of a nuisance would they be and would they cost to much to maintain?

I dont know i would kind of like to see some around and sometimes hear them.

What are your thoughts?

Honestly, no I don't think they are required. Tornadoes here are often so short lived that by the time any sirens were activated, the thing would have gone. Furthermore, there aren't enough people in the UK who can identify a tornado, nor forecasters who are willing to predict tornadic conditions, let alone run sirens when required. Despite there being 2 equivalent EF2s in the last five years (Birmingham and London), nobody has lost their lives to tornadoes for a considerable length of time in the UK - there was a man who was killed recently by a suspected tornado blowing a tree on top of his car, yet there is no evidence to suggest it simply wasn't a convective gust.

It is not that common for the UK to get 'characteristic' tornadic storms - the vast majority of tornadoes come from short lived periods of rotation within cells, which often do not show up on radar until after the tornado has touched down, making them therefore almost completely unpredictable. If we had a rash of storms heading towards East Anglia for example where tornadoes were possible, are we therefore going to switch on sirens from Kings Lynn to Southend?

If a tornado hits, sirens won't prevent injury/death nor save lives - they'd be an expensive luxury to storm fans (me included :D)

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Posted
  • Location: Evesham, Worcs, Albion
  • Location: Evesham, Worcs, Albion

How many tornado spawning supercells do we get in Britain every year?

How many tornadoes reported in Britain in the last 20 years could have been predicted such that a warning could have been issued at least 5 minutes beforehand to those living in the specific locality where they struck?

This isn't Kansas .....

The main weather dangers in Britain are ice and gales - the former probably responsible for the greatest number of serious injuries and deaths. So maybe the Met Office should issue warnings when there are likely to be icy conditions on the roads, so that motorists take heed and drive more carefully? Oh, they do. And they don't :rolleyes:

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

Anyway, we already have Paul Sherman and Nick F as our warning systems!

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Posted
  • Location: Efford, Plymouth
  • Weather Preferences: Misty Autumn Mornings, Thunderstorms and snow
  • Location: Efford, Plymouth

Probably not a well known fact, but Plymouth still has 2 of it's Second World War sirens operational and working in Devonport Dockyard. If you are out and about in the City at 1130am on a Monday morning they test them- although they would only be used should a nuclear leak take place within the dockyard. It can be very unnerving to hear them in parts of the City carried by the wind. It doesn't bear thinking about what it would have been like for my grandparents hearing them for their original use between 1939 and 1944.

Back on topic- in the unlikely event of a tornado hitting the City I guess they could be used.

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Posted
  • Location: Coventry, West Midlands
  • Location: Coventry, West Midlands

We occasionally have tornadoes in Manitoba -- I have no personal experience of them, of course, but there was an F4 or F5 tornado a few years ago that touched down just 40 km west of Winnipeg, one of the strongest ever recorded in Canada, and we don't have sirens. There's a case that can be made that maybe we should, but I don't think it's even under discussion (could be wrong); in the UK, though, it would clearly be a waste of money and effort. While dangerous tornadoes are possible (someone mentioned 21 May 1950, for instance), they're so rare that I don't think the sirens would be doing anything but sitting there quietly for decades. And if they ever did go off, I wonder if people would even know what they were for. :p

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Posted
  • Location: West London - ASL 36.85m/120ft
  • Weather Preferences: Cold/stormy
  • Location: West London - ASL 36.85m/120ft

Well, with the lack of storms they are not needed. How manny tornados kill people in britan? As soon as there becomes more powerfull storms which could post a real threat on a regular basis then they would need to be put in. But at the moment no!

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Posted
  • Location: Wotton-under-Edge, S.Gloucs
  • Location: Wotton-under-Edge, S.Gloucs

I was in Kaprun, Austria last August and one evening they had a MASSIVE thunderstorm and the heaviest

rain I'd ever seen. Then they set off their sirens (air raid siren sound)so it was all a bit scary!

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Posted
  • Location: Douglas, Isle of Man
  • Location: Douglas, Isle of Man

Isle of Man have emergency sirens, not particularly weather related, you are just told to 'go in, stay in and tune in' to the local radio stations to see what it's about, it could cover a nuclear accident somewhere (with various nuclear facilities just across the water) or whatever it may be, but we only hear them on test once a quarter, they are triggered via the emergency services radio system. I think there are 13 of them to cover 30x12 miles (or I suppose the main habitation areas of)

Just how may millions of sirens would be needed to cover the UK I hate to think, but would like £1 for each of them :D

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