Been here 8+ years and have seem Yellow Rain warnings, Yellow Snow (that’s where the huskies go) and even actual reddish snow (it mixed with dust from the Sahara). I’m south of Bath and to the left of Salisbury and was just driving, approaching a flooded area I’d been through three times already and my phone shrieked like a banshee.
Around three million people in parts of Wales and south-west England have been sent an emergency alert from the government as Storm Darragh approaches the UK.
It is the largest use of the warning system yet and has been sent to the mobile phones of people in areas covered by the Met Office red weather warning for the storm.
The alert made a loud siren-like sound when it was delivered to devices, even if they were set on silent, and lasted for around 10 seconds.
It sounded somewhat like the old Emergency Broadcast Signals in the USA, except no “If this were a real emergency you’d be getting nuked now” disclaimer.
LOL. Yeah, fhat song came to mind. Peter Gabriel said it was some weird dream he had and I’m pretty sure the Yellow / Amber / Red warnings are only about 10 years old or so.
The meaning for those on the coast is major flooding. I really don’t know what it means for those of us 30 or so miles from the west or south coast (likely for us it also means major flooding). i was already driving into horizontal rain so did not need the shrieking banshee the MET has employed.
And The MET is a British abbrev. for Meteorological Office not an opera house or a museum, nor my hometown baseball squadron that cannot win a world series since 1986.
Just to make life easier for readers here, from the BBC:
“Red is the most serious weather warning the Met Office can issue, meaning dangerous weather is expected and people are urged to take action to keep themselves and others safe.”
Yes, but those warnings are all relative to regional expectations. We had a snow warning here in southern Ontario a few days ago and ended up with at most a dusting of a couple of centimeters. The snowplow guy took care of it but I could have cleaned it off with a push broom. Over the next few days we’re getting warmer weather and rain which will finish off any little bits of snow still remaining. I actually hate this kind of weather – give me real winter or give me summer, not this half-assed bullshit!
And, it sounds like the primary reason for the issuance of this warning is due to expected high winds (70 to 90 mph in places), as well as potential flooding.
Looking at the various sorts of warnings that the U.S. National Weather Service issues, it looks like the rough equivalents here would be an Extreme Wind Warning for the wind, and some combination of a Coastal Flood Warning and/or a Flash Flood Warning for the flooding.
Apparently not. TIL that the Met Office uses colors (yellow, amber, red) for weather advisories, with red being used for the most severe weather conditions.
While many parts of Great Britain are frequently overcast and receive significant amounts of precipitation, large continuous downpours and gale-force winds are historically rare south and east of Glasgow. By comparison, California gets frequent earthquakes but the M>7 earthquakes near occupied land are once-in-several-decade events.
AIUI, what global heating is bringing us, as the Atlantic warms up and more water vapour collects, are more frequent occasions where, e.g., a month’s worth of rain is dumped in a few hours, and watercourses and flood defences can be overwhelmed. The last storm or two left damage that residents and businesses haven’t got over. Likewise Spain this year, Germany last year and/or the year before. Insufficient warning has been an issue several times, hence this warning system.
I was in a driving rain at the time on a B road. It’ mostly B roads around here. A roads (or even B roads that two cars can pass each other) are luxury. I slowed down and once I saw it was my phone (which was also doing google maps) shrieking at me, I just thought the road up ahead was washed out - though I’ve driven through much worse (with cars that had sucked water into their engines on the side of the road). And this pass through the minor flood was the least of the four, so with about 5 minutes to get home and no mushroom cloud over Salisbury to the East I proceeded. It was only when I got there I saw the warning. Not an SMS or anything. I can’t pull it back. A few hours later I saw and asked a neighbour if he’d gotten it an he said he had just a few minutes ago, and his friend 30 minutes earlier.
I grew up in coastal New York and am used to the occasional Hurricane/Tropical Storm yet they’re outnumbered by Nor’Easters. I can certainly appreciate the warning system telling all the people in the UK (and this is indeed everyone) that it’s some serious stuff. I’m sure those on the West coast know that sustained high winds coming off the Irish Sea mean “wave overtopping” and sandbags might be called for.
This far inland it meant cancelling the Festive Tree Lighting, Santa and the lighted tractor parade. I’m just after battening down my baseball cap and doing a milk and post office run. The rubbish bins had already rammed into a car so I saw no point dis-lodging them to ram again. I did pick up the glass bottles and hopefully positioned that can in a non-spilling manner.
Yet I read in the news Manchester is posting Tornado watches. We are not in Kansas anymore.
The Sun is out! Cancel the alerts! Winter is over! Oh… wait.
Too late to get Santa to put his beard back on and drive a lighted tractor in the parade. I guess we could turn the festive tree off for an hour or two and relight it when it’s dark.
