Should weather warnings ignore county boundaries to provide more accurate information? 

During last week’s cold snap, some places under orange weather warnings did not experience severe weather, while other areas in the same county were hard-hit.

This could be a sign that our weather warning system needs to be updated, according to Professor Emeritus of Geography at Maynooth University John Sweeney.

On Newstalk Breakfast, Prof Sweeney said that Met Éireann should consider a new warning system that disregards county borders.

“If you take County Galway, a weather alert for Portumna or for Ballinasloe may be very much different from that applying in Clifden or Roundstone,” he said.

“The same kind of issues come up with East and West Wicklow, North and South Kerry, counties like Mayo and Cork as well.

“Now, I realise fully that the logic of [a] county boundary based system is of course that the local authority is responsible for taking the steps necessary to salt the roads and so on.

“That is a very valid argument to make, but I think it may well be that maybe we should now consider drawing – as the UK system does – more abstract boundaries to tightly encompass the area at risk from a particular climate hazard.”

An example of the UK weather warning system map during Storm Darragh. Image: The UK Met Office.

Prof Sweeney acknowledged that this type of information is available through Met Éireann’s website, but questioned how many people would check this.

“How many people will actually go to the website to look at that specific data?” he said.

“I think for the general population, people in Ireland know where they live in a particular county, and to see that county either in or outside, or to see a line through the middle of that county, they’re well able to discriminate, ‘Yes it does affect me’, or, ‘It doesn’t affect me.

“That’s just one suggestion; I don’t want to in any way say that the data from Met Éireann is not good in this area – the website is great.”

Climate 'unknowns' in the future

According to Prof Sweeney, there are ‘a lot of unknowns’ when it comes to what our climate will look like in the future.

“There is increasing concern that we may actually be tampering with the jet streams’ stability by warming up the Arctic to the extent that we are – five times faster than the global average,” he said.

“[This is] weakening the jet streams, which keep that cold polar air in check under normal circumstances.”

Prof Sweeney said it is ‘quite dangerous’ for us to think that our weather will not become more extreme in the years ahead.

Featured image: A man clears snow in Towlerton in County Laois in Ireland. Picture date: Monday, January 6, 2025.