On Saturday, November 2, 2013 1:51:44 PM UTC, exmetman wrote:
Hi



What interests me with the alert system of the Met Office is that it's not all that consistent. On Monday morning we had a very similar situation to what is developing this afternoon, but for Monday it was labelled an "Amber" event and this one a "Yellow".



Wind speeds are comparable at 1200 UTC today to that at 0600 UTC on Monday, and this system is still intensifying, and still has to cross the Pennines, when I should imagine the W'ly will if anything be enhanced.



I think the difference in the case of this feature though is 5° of latitude. What I mean by that, is that this system is running 5° further north that that the St Jude event.



I suppose they could 'up' the alert level as winds increase, and that could possibly happen later today...



Bruce.

It could. The way to judge the appropriateness of the warning is post event, though, Bruce. I agree that the warnings system is far from perfect, but to castigate it before an event has actually taken place is too harsh. The yellow warning *may* have been apposite when we look back.

Doing this after the Sun/Mon storm, most people felt the warning was very appropriate. It remains to be seen whether the warnings for this one will have been appropriate, or not, of course.