On the Met Office RSS feed this evening there was a Flash warning for heavy
snow in the East Midlands. As that's 'my' area I had a look. It transpires that
the warning is for Northamptonshire only but, fair enough, that is one of the
parts of the East Midlands. I was a bit bemused, though, when the text of the
warning starts:

"Rain is likely to turn to snow at times during this evening and overnight
bringing the risk of 5 to 10cms across the Chilterns and Cotswolds."

That must really make the people in Northamptonshire feel that their local
interests are being well looked after :-( I really do think that a Flash
warning explicitly and solely for Northamptonshire should be worded in that
context. To issue a broadbrush warning then put it into a local wrapper is
deceiptful and does no credit to the Met Office. Come on guys you can do better
than that.

Norman
--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.

"Norman" wrote in
:

On the Met Office RSS feed this evening there was a Flash warning for
heavy snow in the East Midlands. As that's 'my' area I had a look. It
transpires that the warning is for Northamptonshire only but, fair
enough, that is one of the parts of the East Midlands. I was a bit
bemused, though, when the text of the warning starts:

Yes I get this too - I've just stuck the RSS feeds on my blackberry but
often get a multiple warning for London and the South-East only to find
that it's for sub-regions. My guess would be to split up the warnings into
further regions, but I guess it might make the page a little unwieldly...

Richard

"Richard Dixon" wrote in message
. 253...
"Norman" wrote in
:

On the Met Office RSS feed this evening there was a Flash warning for
heavy snow in the East Midlands. As that's 'my' area I had a look. It
transpires that the warning is for Northamptonshire only but, fair
enough, that is one of the parts of the East Midlands. I was a bit
bemused, though, when the text of the warning starts:

Yes I get this too - I've just stuck the RSS feeds on my blackberry but
often get a multiple warning for London and the South-East only to find
that it's for sub-regions. My guess would be to split up the warnings into
further regions, but I guess it might make the page a little unwieldly...

Richard
--------------------
................ and Essex is shown on the map of Greater London and S.E
England but if you click on the county it's not mentioned. It comes under
warnings for the East of England. From the general comments we've had over
the last year it's not really a big thumbs up for the system, really.
Dave

Dave Cornwell wrote:

............... and Essex is shown on the map of Greater London and S.E
England but if you click on the county it's not mentioned. It comes under
warnings for the East of England. From the general comments we've had over
the last year it's not really a big thumbs up for the system, really.

The biggest problem is that the maps merge all the warnings for each day
together, meaning that it's very hard to see from the map quickly
whether you are at risk of heavy rain or heavy snow. It actually takes a
few minutes of careful reading to determine this.

Jonathan

On Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:43:30 +0000, Jonathan Stott wrote:

The biggest problem is that the maps merge all the warnings for each day
together, meaning that it's very hard to see from the map quickly
whether you are at risk of heavy rain or heavy snow. It actually takes a
few minutes of careful reading to determine this.

Jonathan

The overlap is certainly a particularly annoying feature of the current
setup. As I've said before, for early warnings at least I would find the
old-style percentage risk maps a great deal more useful than simply
plastering whole regions with yellow and orange.

--
Bewdley, Worcs. ~90m asl.

In article ,
Richard Dixon writes:
"Norman" wrote in
:

On the Met Office RSS feed this evening there was a Flash warning for
heavy snow in the East Midlands. As that's 'my' area I had a look. It
transpires that the warning is for Northamptonshire only but, fair
enough, that is one of the parts of the East Midlands. I was a bit
bemused, though, when the text of the warning starts:

Yes I get this too - I've just stuck the RSS feeds on my blackberry but
often get a multiple warning for London and the South-East only to find
that it's for sub-regions. My guess would be to split up the warnings into
further regions, but I guess it might make the page a little unwieldly...

The number of times recently that "Southeast England" heavy snow
warnings have turned out to be for only Bucks, Oxon and Milton Keynes
reinforces the idea that I've had for some time that having those areas
included within "SE England" doesn't really make a lot of sense
meteorologically. Surely they would fit a lot better into the East
Midlands?
--
John Hall
"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless
information."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

On Feb 9, 9:16*pm, John Hall wrote:
In article ,
*Richard Dixon writes:

"Norman" wrote in
:

On the Met Office RSS feed this evening there was a Flash warning for
heavy snow in the East Midlands. As that's 'my' area I had a look. It
transpires that the warning is for Northamptonshire only but, fair
enough, that is one of the parts of the East Midlands. I was a bit
bemused, though, when the text of the warning starts:

Yes I get this too - I've just stuck the RSS feeds on my blackberry but
often get a multiple warning for London and the South-East only to find
that it's for sub-regions. My guess would be to split up the warnings into
further regions, but I guess it might make the page a little unwieldly....

The number of times recently that "Southeast England" heavy snow
warnings have turned out to be for only Bucks, Oxon and Milton Keynes
reinforces the idea that I've had for some time that having those areas
included within "SE England" doesn't really make a lot of sense
meteorologically. Surely they would fit a lot better into the East
Midlands?

It's a bit like Wiltshire going in to the SW, and south Hampshire and
the Isle of Wight going into the SE, which in winter at least, seems
to be the wrong way round: a decision made, it seems, just by drawing
a north-south line and seeing what counties fall on each side, rather
than accounting for the maritime influence.

Nick

In article
,
writes:
It's a bit like Wiltshire going in to the SW, and south Hampshire and
the Isle of Wight going into the SE, which in winter at least, seems
to be the wrong way round: a decision made, it seems, just by drawing
a north-south line and seeing what counties fall on each side, rather
than accounting for the maritime influence.

Twenty years or more ago, there used to be a "Central Southern England"
region. I don't know why it was done away with.
--
John Hall
"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless
information."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"John Hall" wrote in message
...

Twenty years or more ago, there used to be a "Central Southern
England"
region. I don't know why it was done away with.
--

A coastline stretching W-E from Lyme Regis to Hastings was probably
awkward to handle for anything mobile.
Dorset used to appear in Central Southern and/or South West warnings
depending on the originator.

Tom

In message , John Hall
writes
.....

Twenty years or more ago, there used to be a "Central Southern England"
region. I don't know why it was done away with.


I may well be wrong, but in Brussels a year or two, the EU headquarter
buildings had a tourist centre in which a map included English regions.
From memory this displayed regions very much like and perhaps the same
as those now in use by the Met Office. There are public bodies such
SEEDA which seem to be regional offices of central government have to do
with the European regional development and social funds.

Not necessarily the right answer, but might be worth some research.


--
Peter Thomas