Storm Isha, Amber ⚠️

[Saint coolio]

2 hours ago, Man With Beard said:

In very slight defence, they did put the Amber warning on a trajectory that meant it could turn red. But the public probably would not have been away of this. 

Is there a case for putting somewhere on a "red watch", a bit like a hurricane watch in the Caribbean? In other words "There's the chance the warning may be upgraded to red". That way, no overcommital from the Met Office, and people get adequate notice.

would double like this if it were possible

some sort of simplification that doesn't directly combine risk and impact but instead describes the two things simultaneously in the communication to the public   

[Ross90]

Was there actually a sting jet? If anywhere did experience it they would've noticed as it briefly increases max gusts by 20-30mph. 

The wind has finally died down to just a light breeze here after a few heavy, blustery hail showers. Almost 24 hrs of gale force gusts, I don't remember that happening any time in recent years. Glasgow and Edinburgh both recorded their highest gusts since 2013.

[Alderc 2.0]

1 hour ago, Paul said:

I agree that the matrix is an important part of the warnings. But, I'm wondering whether you're more highlighting an issue in the communication of the warnings and the matrix system itself, rather than anything else. I mean, if so many people aren't reading the warnings properly and potentially misunderstanding them, is it their fault or the warning's fault?

A warning ought to be as crystal clear as possible from the headline really, if you need to delve into the inner workings to see what's going on, I'm not sure that's ideal. 

Not Meto bashing by the way, as it's a difficult thing to get right, but the one thing a warning system ought not to be (imo) is confusing. 

This is so on point! You shouldn’t need to delve around in a matrix to find what type of Yellow warning (which there 5) or Amber warning (4) you’ve got. 
 

Watch - Warning - Take Immediate Action. Thats all there needs to be. 

Edited January 22 by Alderc 2.0

[Jo Farrow]

1 hour ago, Ross90 said:

I feel like it's a bit of both. If people are misunderstanding the warning system then maybe it should be made simpler. It should absolutely be tidied up a bit when there are multiple warnings as it just looks a mess and you can't even click on individual warnings now.

IPMA in Portugal show the warnings in timeline style for regions which I think helps imagine a time period for severe weather arriving and clearing. We can have the same warning from Cornwall to Kent and the impacts will shift eastwards with time. 

[Alderc 2.0]

1 hour ago, jackpunch said:

And that's not accurate. Loftus in Cleveland measured a gust of 76mph, a remote radar station near Alnwick, Northumberland measured one at 99mph.

Media now reporting 3 people dead as a result of the storm. 

Well it is accurate, the Loftus gust is the 123kmh gust just to north of line I drew and the 99mph at Brizlee wood is extremely isolated as you say and at 820ft above sea level on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere and is completely unrepresentative of conditions lower down. Also the station is not part of the those more widely available on sites like Meteociel and XCWeather

[Chasbrown]

2 hours ago, Paul said:

I agree that the matrix is an important part of the warnings. But, I'm wondering whether you're more highlighting an issue in the communication of the warnings and the matrix system itself, rather than anything else. I mean, if so many people aren't reading the warnings properly and potentially misunderstanding them, is it their fault or the warning's fault?

A warning ought to be as crystal clear as possible from the headline really, if you need to delve into the inner workings to see what's going on, I'm not sure that's ideal. 

Not Meto bashing by the way, as it's a difficult thing to get right, but the one thing a warning system ought not to be (imo) is confusing. 

Just to add that the matrix is not posted with the TV forecast which is probably the main way that people hear about the warning. 

[Fiona Robertson]

The squalls coming in on the back of Isha have been fierce. Me and my chainsaw are dodging them. Thunder was too close for comfort, think there might have been a lightning strike about quarter of a mile from me. There was a definite CRACK! quality to it rather than the usual rumbling.

[rwtwm]

44 minutes ago, Alderc 2.0 said:

This is so on point! You shouldn’t need to delve around in a matrix to find what type of Yellow warning (which there 5) or Amber warning (4) you’ve got. 
 

Watch - Warning - Take Immediate Action. Thats all there needs to be. 

I've disagreed with a lot of your upthread commentary but I think this is spot on. I don't think a matrix helps with people's understanding of the warnings. 

This wording at least would help clarify what was expected of people when each level was breached. (Then we could argue if a warning was justified for a certain area rather than arguing about an amber warning!)

But to comment on the validity of the Amber in your or any area. You are using the event itself to determine whether an advance warning was justified. That doesn't make any sense when you think about it. 

In a way, the weather behaves like a quantum system. We can only talk about the future probabilistically, but we only actually observe one outcome. To determine if a weather warning is valid, you have to look at the probabilistic  information available before event. 

And then you have to empathise enough to say that even if you didn't think that probability was sufficient to justify a warning. Is it truly outrageous that someone with the same information thinks it might be?

 

Edited January 22 by rwtwm
Wrote situation instead of information for some reason

[alexisj9]

9 hours ago, sunnijim said:

Who said anything about low winds?

It was a wild and blustery night.

There is nothing wrong with cutting through the hyperbole  and stating facts; and they are facts, not just Wishful thinking that continues to try and back  a now defunct idea that gusts went higher than 60mph in the SE widely.

Models were about 10mph over the top.

Even Langdon bay only managed 59mph as its highest gust.

If anyone can produce evidence of higher gusts, fine but let's not  start shooting people down if they don't have the populer view of it being a remarkable event.

There was plenty of that here last night as members dared to say winds speeds were unremarkable etc.

60mph doesn't normally ark the lines opposite my house, that's how I know

Edited January 22 by alexisj9

[alexisj9]

8 hours ago, Alderc 2.0 said:

Completely disagree, your statement is too broad, the storm was not severe for a large part of the heavily populated south where the amber was never needed and never should have been issued, not just my or my next door neighbours back garden. 
 

Further north conditions just about warranted the Amber warning, but I’ve still seen very few (I don’t think there were any) official gusts over 75mph for lowland stations away from exposed coasts. Clearly aviation and ferries where affected along with the trains but again this all very temporary and especially on train front their striking staff cause far more disruption than any weather event we’ve seen recently 

I maintain my position too many warnings are issued full stop and like yesterday they are often too aggressively worded and too widespread. Fortunately we have very few true life  threatening meteorological events in the UK however the number of warning suggests otherwise i maintain that a ‘cry wolf’ situation is in the making where people just won’t prepare for when something truly impactful and devastating comes along. 

 

Tell that to the people with damage down here, to people who couldn't catch there ferries, or to people who couldn't get home cause trains weren't running. This was not just a northern event.

[sunnijim]

11 minutes ago, alexisj9 said:

60mph doesn't normally ark the lines opposite my house, that's how I know

All we can go on is the gusts recorded at official stations if we are holding an inquest.

60mph is actually a generous round up of gusts, most didn't get that close.

That's not to say that a local gust near you didn't go a touch  higher, but surely you can't deny the facts as they are written.?, overall 55mph seemed to be the height of it.

[Jo Farrow]

1 hour ago, alexisj9 said:

Tell that to the people with damage down here, to people who couldn't catch there ferries, or to people who couldn't get home cause trains weren't running. This was not just a northern event.

There was so much news going on yesterday, it's been hard to catch up with it all today. So much disruption. Very glad the main part of the storm was overnight, at least many people had got home and retired for the evening.

[alexisj9]

5 hours ago, MAF said:

Ah, but thats according to weather stations readings. Who's to say there weren't higher gust away from a weather station?

I know for a fact there was, fences that survived cerian are down, and that did gust at 80+ for three hours. It wasn't bad for most of the time, but with ppn it gusted hard where I was, but not in cerians league. Thank goodness. It was never gonna be that bad, but it was worse than those down playing it are saying.

[Thunder Snow]

Well isha has certainly made a impact in Carlisle, something hit one of our window and cracked no idea what it was, fence completely gone. The trail of destruction around Carlisle, is eye opening. What was the max wind for Carlisle, in any event certainly the worst wind storm I've experienced left me.very nervous.

On to the next storm, it maybe won't be as strong but we have to take in to consideration that it's following on from isha which will have weakened structures and trees

[wimblettben]

I think for a lot of areas away from Ireland, Scotland, coasts and inland hills it was a bit less then predicted as originally even gusts inland were suppose to be getting up to around at least the 70mph range but going from a lot of reports it looks like it maxed out more at around 55mph with a few isolated spots maybe getting to 60mph.

When i went up the road here after 4:00pm i was already getting gusts in the 40's so just assumed it was a sign of an extreme night to come. But then i was getting the odd 50mph gust and i could see the odd power flash in the sky from time to time. It actually dropped back to 35-45mph for a bit before the peak between 7:00pm and 9:00pm where i got a gust of 55.0mph and then another at 56.8mph probably another 10 minutes or so later.

Still a decent blow though and tends to be the max we get every 1 or 2 years where it causes the power to keep going on and off for a short time before staying on and being ok again. Twigs, some branches and weak or shallow rooted trees seem to be most affected from these sorts of winds along with possible minor property damage.

[IanT]

6 hours ago, Paul said:

I agree that the matrix is an important part of the warnings. But, I'm wondering whether you're more highlighting an issue in the communication of the warnings and the matrix system itself, rather than anything else. I mean, if so many people aren't reading the warnings properly and potentially misunderstanding them, is it their fault or the warning's fault?

A warning ought to be as crystal clear as possible from the headline really, if you need to delve into the inner workings to see what's going on, I'm not sure that's ideal. 

Not Meto bashing by the way, as it's a difficult thing to get right, but the one thing a warning system ought not to be (imo) is confusing. 

I’ve discussed this before - it’s what I call the “mostly harmless” problem. Whilst [low prob x high impact] and [high prob x low impact] are the same in EV terms (so useful for insurers etc) they aren’t the same when preparedness is the key outcome. In simple terms these two axes shouldn’t be reduced to one dimension (colour) because too much valuable information is lost in the final transformation.

I like the matrix, but not the colour overlay. Perhaps retain the matrix but go with a “PxI” labelling system where

P(Probability) is Low(L), Medium(M), High(H), Very High(V)

I(Impact) is Low(1), Medium(2), High(3), Extreme(4)

So Isha would have been “upgraded” to an V4 for a limited area late last night.

Why? Because most people don’t need to make special preparations for high probability / low impact events, but they should for a low probability / high impact events. At the moment these two scenarios both end up being called Amber. That’s where the loss of valuable information occurs.

 

[Iceman2606]

Storm Isha - 21-22 January 2024 Time-Lapse