MetService corporate affairs general manager Jacqui Bridges is taking issue with Tauranga City council claims that it received a late warning for Monday evening's thunderstorm, which resulted in blocked drains and surface flooding across parts of the city.
In a press release attributed to the city council emergency manager Paul Baunton, the council says it wasn't until 7.30pm that MetService issued a thunderstorm warning for Tauranga based on its live radar.
It meant the storm was already underway and there was a higher risk of intense rainfall.
Jacqui says severe thunderstorm watches and warnings work quite differently from watches and warnings for broadscale severe weather.
She shared a link to the MetService blog which explains the difference between outlook, watch and warning.
'Severe thunderstorm watches are issued up to 12 hours in advance for potential severe thunderstorms, giving people a heads-up that the weather conditions look favourable for the development of local-scale severe weather in the area(s) covered in the watch,” says Jacqui.
'Because the identification of severe thunderstorms takes place as they are forming, local-scale Warnings are only issued when severe thunderstorms have been identified and are trackable by our weather radar.
'This is standard practice across most National Weather Services. Typically, severe thunderstorm warnings are issued for the next hour, and are updated as the cell is tracked through the area.”
According to MetService's page the time to prepare for thunderstorms, pre-clearing drains and ponding hotspots, is during the ‘Watch'.
MetService issued its severe thunderstorm watch 12 hours before the thunderstorm event happened.
The severe thunderstorm warning was issued at 07.15pm when a severe cell was detected.
The response from Tauranga City Council is that on Monday afternoon, council staff were satisfied with their assessment of the possible thunderstorm based on the information they had.
'Each event that occurs provides an opportunity for improvement and we will review our thunderstorm preparations,” says Tauranga City Council communications manager Aimee Driscoll.
8 comments
Pleasing...
Posted on 21-12-2017 11:49 | By penguin
...to see that TCC is undertaking to ''up-skill.'' However, I would have thought that staff would have known the basics around such an event simply by reading the info. on the Metservice web site.
Yeah right
Posted on 21-12-2017 12:15 | By CC8
Council should be keeping ALL of the drains and gutters clear ALL of the time...that's their basic function and what we pay rates for...not pie in the sky white elephants ..... and Met Service is next to useless..I have no idea how they do it but the Norwegian weather forecasting service does a better job of accurately predicting NZ weather .. especially long term
A bit sad
Posted on 21-12-2017 13:03 | By Centurion
That emergency managers don't understand warning systems.
Lay Person Challenge For weather forecasts
Posted on 21-12-2017 13:09 | By HMG
TCC need to purchase a radio so they can hear the weather forecast which is given out at least half hourly throughout the day - and then there is this other way you can forecast the weather - LOOK UP- the sky told me well before the thunderstorm arrived it was on it's way!! Didn't need notification from Metservice!
Bang on Jacqui
Posted on 21-12-2017 14:25 | By maildrop
I looked earlier in the day and thunderstorms were predicted, as was 20mm of rain in the 2 hour window in which arrived. An unusually accurate forecast. TCC are a shambles.
TCC
Posted on 21-12-2017 18:08 | By Capt_Kaveman
excuse for lack of maintenance, they should be sacking people at council level
@ CC8
Posted on 21-12-2017 18:14 | By GreertonCynic
Yep, yeah, and yes. And the Europeans have spent a sh!tload on weather forecasting supercomputers. They were also a lot more accurate predicting the paths of the hurricanes in the Atlantic earlier this year.
Come on TCC
Posted on 21-12-2017 18:20 | By Captain Sensible
TCC will buy a new building and set up their very own TCC Met Service for this area. Hundreds of staff with degrees in probability and guessing, as well as some consultants. Trips overseas to see how weather is predicted in other countries. Maybe a small weather Museum nearby to attract all the passengers from the cruise ships so they can see photos of clouds and blue sky. An alert system to ping all mobile phones when they come close to getting it right. Come on TCC, don't let this potential unique winning project slip through your fingers. Oh, and don't forget to consult the iwi first.
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