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Jersey Met defends its red warning of snow

A RED warning was the correct one to give ahead of Thursday’s snow, said Jersey’s Met Office in defence of criticism it has received after the predicted blizzard did not materialise.

Talbot Valley in the snow. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 20774620)
Talbot Valley in the snow. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 20774620) / Peter Frankland

But it is considering changing the criteria for the warnings to bring it in line with the UK Met Office, which has fewer top-level warnings.

On Wednesday, local forecasters predicted blizzards and significant drifting overnight with between 4cm and 8cm of snow expected.

But there was little snow overnight and although more did hit later in the day, it was not as serious as anticipated.

The warning was downgraded to orange, and many people took to social media to criticise the Met Office for over-reacting by issuing the red alert.

However, Jersey Met’s principal meteorologist, John Searson, said that based on information from computer models on Wednesday, issuing a red warning was the correct decision, but the department is looking at making changes.

‘On Wednesday morning we were looking at a high orange warning and there was a debate over whether we should include the word “blizzard”,’ said Mr Searson.

‘There was good evidence from the computer models that we could get significant snow overnight and that as the winds picked up during the day this could be blown around as a blizzard.

‘At that time I had no problem with using the word “blizzard”, which tipped the warning into the red category.

‘Another issue was freezing rain, which was in the red warning and which we did end up getting.’

The warning was reduced to orange when it became clear the heaviest snowfall was passing to the west of the Channel Islands.

‘In hindsight, an orange warning was the right level for what we ended up getting,’ he said.

‘We will review the events and how we went about things and it may be that we change what we do.

‘For example, we get to red warnings much earlier than the UK Met Office, so it may be that we change our criteria to match theirs.’

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