Met Office feeling the heat over severe high temperatures warning for significant threat to life accidentally sent to phones despite -11C chill after backlash over storm forecasting
Britons got a big shock today when their phones started displayed a severe high temperatures warning for significant threat to life or property despite the big chill.
Britons got a big shock today when their phones started displayed a severe high temperatures warning for significant threat to life or property despite the big chill.
The Met Office has apologised for the blunder which it put down to an error when test alerts issued by a third party aggregator were accidentally sent to the public.
People shared screenshots of the alerts on the Apple Weather app with one warning the user of a severe high temperature next to a 4C (39F) forecast for Manchester.
Some warnings describing the weather event told recipients to take action immediately although they also included a reference to it being a test warning.
But many users instantly saw the funny side, with one tweeting better get the bikini on and another asking: Has someone been drinking at the Met Office?
It comes as temperatures yesterday plunged to -2C (28F) in London and -11C (12F) at Braemar in Aberdeenshire - after last week saw the coldest UK temperature so early in the season since 1998 with the same low in that village on November 19.
The blunder caps off a bumpy week for the Met Office, which insisted it will learn lessons from Storm Bert after criticism over its incompetence that led to a clear underestimation of the significant flooding impact particularly in South Wales.
Then, top BBC meteorologist Paul Hudson claimed storm naming can be counter productive after Storm Conall swept through with only a single yellow rain warning.
While social media users first started posting about the severe heat alert just before noon yesterday, others were still tweeting this morning that they had received one.
One tweeted a picture of a 4C forecast for Manchester next to the alert, saying: Severe high temperature warning? Really?
Another showed the alert next to a 5C temperature for Appleton in Warrington, writing: Well apparently severe high temperature warning is in place. Better get the bikini on!
And a third noticed a 5C forecast in Grayrigg, Cumbria, saying: Im visiting family in Cumbria and theyve just had a Severe high temperatures warning issued.
Has someone been drinking at the Met Office or is this genuinely a high temperature for Cumbria at this time of year?
The Met Office test warnings were sent out via a meteorological aggregator that distributes weather alerts to a number of locations including Apple devices.
A Met Office spokeswoman told MailOnline: During routine testing with a third-party warnings aggregator test warnings were erroneously published in the aggregators live system.
This resulted in redistributors including Apple publishing the test warnings on their channels.
The test warnings were promptly removed from the aggregators live system, resulting in the majority of redistributors also removing them from their channels.
However, some are continuing to show the test warnings. We are working with the aggregator to contact those redistributors whose systems have not processed the cancellation.
There have been no Met Office severe weather warnings in place since the latest one – a yellow fog warning for parts of western and southern England – expired at 11am yesterday.
The only time the Met Office has actually issued a red warning for extreme heat was in July 2022 when the UK hit 40C (104F) for the first time.
A cyclist on the banks of the River Cam in Cambridge on a frosty morning yesterday
The Met Office forecast for this morning expects highs in single-digits for many areas
It comes as the Met Office insisted it will learn lessons from Bert after criticism over its incompetence.
Hundreds of homes were left underwater and roads turned into rivers after the UK was hit by up to seven inches of rain, heavy snow and 82mph winds at the weekend.
The Met Office was accused of letting down the public with Labour MP for Cardiff West, Alex Barros-Curtis, saying warnings should have been amber or red.
But Met Office services director Simon Brown insisted observed rainfall totals were broadly in line with the forecast and the severe weather warnings issued in advance.
He said 50 weather warnings were issued last week, but added: Im committed to learning the lessons from Storm Bert to support even greater preparedness.
Then, BBC meteorologist Mr Hudson said on Tuesday that the naming of Conall by the Netherlands weather forecasting service KNMI would have caused unnecessary worry for people in the UK, given its minimal impact on Britain.
The Met Office had issued a yellow warning at 11am on Tuesday for up to 2in (50mm) of rain to fall over southern England between 10pm that night and 12pm on Wednesday.
The only time the Met Office has actually issued a red warning for extreme heat was in July 2022 when the UK hit 40C (104F) for the first time. That warning is pictured in the tweet above
Then just after 4pm on Tuesday, the Met Office revealed that KNMI had named Conall and it would hit the UK overnight before bringing strong winds to Holland later on Wednesday.
But no wind alerts were required for Britain, and the yellow rain warning was reduced in size twice on Wednesday morning as Conall passed through - once at about 6am to remove Devon, and again at 10am to leave it covering a smaller area of the South East.
The Met Offices US-style list of storm names has been shared with Met Eireann in Ireland since it launched in 2015, and then KNMI also joined the partnership in 2019.
But after Conall was named on Tuesday night, Mr Hudson, a forecaster on Look North who is also the BBCs climate and environment correspondent, tweeted: This is where the naming of storms is counter productive.
This has been named by the Dutch Met service for the Netherlands but protocol is such that the Met Office have to adopt its name, even though it will not be impactful for the UK. It just causes unnecessary worry.
And a Met Office spokesman said: We name storms with our Irish and Dutch counterparts as this reflects a common storm track which systems can take. Low pressure systems dont respect country boundaries so naming these together ensures clarity and consistency.
There are occasions when storms are named within the group which dont affect every partner and this is communicated as such. We made clear in our communications that Storm Conall was named by KNMI, as the system will chiefly impact the Netherlands.
