Weather forecasting for Cork during Storm Babet was 'complete disaster' complainant claims 

WEATHER forecasting for Cork during Storm Babet last year was “a failure and complete disaster”.

This was what one complainant to Met Éireann claimed following the destruction caused as a result of the storm in areas such as Midleton and Glanmire

The weather warnings issued for Storm Babet were the most-complained-about forecasts in Ireland in 2023.

Met Éireann received a significant amount of complaints around the event, with Cork people calling it “very poor forecasting”, “a joke,” and saying “questions need to be answered here as to how you got it so wrong — it was a failure and complete disaster on your part”.

Storm Babet had a significant impact on parts of Cork last October, with many homes and businesses damaged. 

Following the storm, questions were raised as to why only an orange weather warning was issued for the county.

Records of complaints sent to Met Éireann were provided to The Echo under the Freedom of Information Act.

“I am completely outraged by the fact Met Éireann did not issue a status red warning for Munster,” one said.

'Weather does not respect boundaries'

Several people queried why a county the size of Cork was grouped as one area with one weather warning, and pointed out: “Weather does not respect county boundaries.”

At the time, Met Éireann’s head of forecasting Eoin Sherlock told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland: “The way we do it is we look at if it’s going to be a widespread event that will affect all of Co Cork.

“We had one or two stations where it creeped into red territory,” he explained, adding that other parts of Cork were orange or even yellow.

Many detailed the devastation they experienced in the complaints.

“Met Éireann’s orange warning yesterday left Cork city and county open to very dangerous and destructive conditions — no one was prepared for the flooding.”

Other complaints questioned why a status red warning was not issued.

Others also requested explanations, saying: “Having personally witnessed flooding the likes of which I have never seen before while driving around during the orange alert today, I would be grateful if I could be informed as to why the unprecedented dire conditions did not warrant a red warning please.”

Response from Met Éireann

A spokesperson for Met Éireann told The Echo that yellow and orange rainfall warnings were issued across the country for Monday, October 16, for some subsequent days.

“In particular, orange warnings were issued for Cork and Waterford, with Kerry, Wexford, and Wicklow added at later stages during the three-day period (October 16-18). The initial warnings also extended in time,” the spokesperson explained.

“The warnings were confirmed by the majority of the recorded rainfall accumulations at Met Éireann weather stations during the period. These are the standard guidance sources used to inform all Met Éireann weather warnings.

“The warnings issued also contained forecasted impacts. These were flooding, poor visibility, dangerous driving conditions, and possible wave overtopping at high tide, across all areas where orange warnings were in place.

“Flooding and flooding-related impacts were included in warnings issued as the river levels were expected to be high (potentially breaking their banks). Met Éireann had also noted that soils across the country were saturated or waterlogged, high accumulations of rain were expected, and tidal lock was an additional factor which would exacerbate rising river levels,” the spokesperson added.

The rainfall levels for the time period in question fell into the orange level, the spokesperson explained.

“The nearest Met Éireann rainfall station to Midleton is Ballincurrig (10km). This rainfall station recorded 70.4mm of rainfall in the period 6am, October 17 to 1pm, October 18.

“This falls into the orange level rainfall category (50-80 mm in 24 hours) and as such was covered by the overall orange weather warning issued by Met Éireann for Co Cork.

“The flooding that occurred in Midleton and surrounding areas was due to a combination of factors including saturated soils, extremely heavy rain in a short period of time, and tidal effects, which can cause river levels to rise even further,” the spokesperson concluded.