Weather warnings in Irelands are set to undergo a major change as meteorologists look to change the way in which they determine the severity of a storm.
Met Éireann is transitioning to a fully impact-based forecasting system in which the focus of warnings is on potential impacts of weather rather than on the numerical values attained by the weather elements themselves.
The Irish Meteorological Service said: "We issue warnings ahead of expected adverse weather to inform us when to take action to protect ourselves and our property."
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The colour coding of warnings is consistent with that used by the European agency Meteoalarm.
Yellow signifies weather that may be dangerous locally, but that is not a widespread threat.
Orange indicates infrequent weather conditions that pose a threat to life and property over a broader region.
Red warnings are for very dangerous weather conditions associated with widespread, intense meteorological phenomena.
The reasoning behind impact-related weather warnings relates to a "risk matrix" the Irish Times reported, with the horizontal axis denoting the impact and the vertical axis denoting the probability of the weather event.
The anticipated damage from the event comes from a mix of probability and impact, which then allows meteorologists to determine the severity and thus code the level and colour of the warning to heed the public.
Alan O'Reilly, who runs Carlow weather said the move to a new impact based weather warning system like the UK Met Office use was "great news."
"Something I have been calling for over the last few years," the moderator of the popular Facebook page added.
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