Yellow weather warnings - sensible precautions or scaremongering?

There are many authorities in Scotland who have made the decision to close schools and nurseries tomorrow. My grandsons will be at home. My dsil has been told his firm is probably closing too. The police are asking everyone to stay home. I've just gone into the garden to put away as much as I can. A red alert is no joke.

HS62

I've been 😟 worrying all winter about incoming storms. None of them were as bad as predicted. I actually enjoyed being outside in some of the high winds etc. It was a lot of hype a lot of the time. Some weather stations exaggerating, to save their arsed. We don't want another MICHAEL FISH MOMENT Zdo we one weatherman said. Daft at times. Just use your loaf on the day. Love. Xx

It depends very much where you live, though. Those people flooded out of their homes, yet again, would, I believe, disagree, or those whose roofs were blown off. Sadly, some people lost their lives, too.

East Renfrewshire schools are closed tomorrow. Our amber warning is now Red.

Well, in this neck of the woods, South Oxfordshire the forecast is winds of 11 mph, gusting 25 with rain

In fact, the sun is shining and there is a slight breeze.

That reminds me of the time quite recently when there was a computer malfunction on the BBC weather website which said there would be winds of 50,000mph. It was the funniest thing I'd seen for sometime. Apparently it should have read 5mph. People were notified about the mistake.

mae13

Pure sensationalism.
A few short years back Age UK appealed to the tabloid media to desist from their blown-up headlines about winter weather: claims about a 3 month long record-breaking ice age, temperatures plunging to an all-time low, blizzards trapping us all indoors for weeks and pensioners facing starvation.
These screaming headlines were terrifying the elderly, in particular, and so an appeal went out to stop the hysteria.

Needless to say, this appeal was ignored.

It happens all the time.
It’s called Winter! I shall still be going to work and doing whatever it is I want to be doing.

Red weather warning here and schools are closed. I am hoping that the plumbers will be able to come in the morning to fix a burst pipe in the central heating system. It has taken three days to locate it and meanwhile we have no central heating or hot water. Luckily we have electric fires, woolly jumpers and a kettle.

Red warning here too. All schools and council buildings closed, as are many of the GP practices, no bin collections, no train services. Hopefully everyone will remain safe and sound. Better to err on the side of caution than to risk lives.

If the blinking weather forecasts were accurate there might be some point in all these yellow, orange, red and so on warnings, but most of the time they are anything but.

Do we really need another instance of the Nanny State?

We are all capable of deciding when the weather is so bad that we dare not go out.

I hope, RosiesMaw that you don't have to cancel your trip.

Many of us in the West of Scotland have just received Govt. alerts on our phones. It would have wakened the dead!.

Just had the red alert emergency warning come through on our mobiles too (east of Scotland). Don't recall that happening before.

Moonwatcher1904

We live in a top floor flat with a flat roof above us. Our flat faces the Irish Sea so we get bombarded with all sorts of weather but we are still here.
I think the media do a lot of scaremongering. Only the other week was a headline about a threat to life as snow expected. A bit of an exaggeration as it was practically gone the next day.

Like you, I live in a top floor flat with a flat roof. Being so high up, I do find the wind can be fierce. I overlook the harbour too, so being on the seafront makes it worse. I get bombarded by wind. When floods are forecast, I feel rather safe as I am on the 8th floor so if I flooded, we really would have a lot to worry about! That said, there is always something to see and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else!

Me too. It's the first time it has been used.

Marydoll

Many of us in the West of Scotland have just received Govt. alerts on our phones. It would have wakened the dead!.

Frightened my poor husband who has no idea what’s going!

I wasn’t too concerned now off out to the garden to see what needs securing down!

The red alert, that is.

Earlier headlines from The Daily Mail advised people to tie down their dogs, and that there was a tornado in Cornwall.

All buses now cancelled in Edinburgh. It's scary. We live in a tall block at the top of a hill. 😟

The very best of luck to you all, especially in Northern Ireland and Scotland, let’s hope we all emerge unscathed and that nobody suffers any property damage. You have my sympathy, we suffered badly in Wales with Storm Darragh, and it is frightening.

Reports of panic buying in the local supermarket. No doubt a loo roll shortage to follow. I imagine they are all buying salads in case the electric goes down.

Grandmabatty

There are many authorities in Scotland who have made the decision to close schools and nurseries tomorrow. My grandsons will be at home. My dsil has been told his firm is probably closing too. The police are asking everyone to stay home. I've just gone into the garden to put away as much as I can. A red alert is no joke.

Unless people think it's some fiendish government plot to keep us all home, there's some sense in being cautious. Getting it wrong would be the stuff of nightmares. I shan't forget actually listening to Michael Fish laughing off a telephone call from someone in France and reassuring everyone that there was nothing to worry about winds coming from the Bay of Biscay. As he spoke, I could hear our roof tiles lifting and crashing down again. I lived on the South Coast, and in East Sussex - just that county alone - over 15,000 mature trees just fell over, often with parked vehicles and kerbs and people's front walls attached to their root base!

Our Vet spent the night in his shower room with his dog. His home survived, his neighbours fled and in the daylight only the walls of their houses were standing!

If that storm had happened in daytime, god knows what the toll of death and injury in the path of the storm would have been. Just the noise alone was terrifying.

Staying in and out of harm's way isn't a bad plan and if it turns out to be a false alarm in some areas, and the government is just trying to save face.....well, it has to be better than awful scary stuff.

You are absolutely right Grandmafrench. I'm concerned for Ireland who will bear the first brunt of it.

My neighbours Mothers funeral is now cancelled. A lot of the family have flown in to attend.

That phone siren warning was horrible. Very sinister sound somehow. I suppose it has to be. Even the cat got a fright.

seriously bad winds forecast for Glasgow. If you get worried about window safety then some masking tape corner to corner will help and curtains closed. The time period is for hours which makes the situation worse

We had an alert on the phones just before 6pm today, a red weather warning for our area of Scotland. A lot of shops not opening, schools and nurseries are shutting, GP surgery is shut, but will do phone appointments, no public transport running, and warning essential travel only due to expected 100mph winds. We have dug out torches and the camping gas stove, and charging phones overnight. Preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.