Jul 05, 2023 at 5:16 PMUpdate: 13 minutes ago
The KNMI only gave in on Wednesday the early morning code orange out due to storm Poly. And pass by 8:00 am changed that – immediately – into code red. Why did it take so long for those weather warnings to come out?
“We use several weather models to predict the weather,” explains Raymond Klaassen of Weerplaza. Those models did not yet clearly indicate on Tuesday whether the storm would actually come.
By the evening more information came in that the storm could be quite strong. “We then spoke about code orange ourselves and warned about it with the idea of informing people in time,” says Klaassen. But the commercial weather agency Weerplaza does not issue weather warnings. Only the KNMI is allowed to do that. And the weather institute decided to wait for more certainty.
“To issue code orange, the chance that such a storm will occur must be more than 60 percent,” explains a KNMI spokesperson. “After our calculations, and also those of weather parties such as Weerplaza, it turned out that the chance of a summer storm was still much smaller than 60 percent.”
Only in the course of the night did the weather images change. “Then it became really clear that storm Poly would rage above the Northern Netherlands,” says the spokesperson. “At around 3 a.m., the chance of a summer storm was over 60 percent.” An hour later code orange was a fact.
Klaassen finds that timing “very unfortunate”. “It’s inconvenient for society, because people just go to work in the morning. And that leads to various problems.” But according to the KNMI, the chance of a storm was too small to issue code orange on Tuesday evening.
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Only in the morning it was clearly code red
To map out the problems that may be associated with code orange, various parties are coming together, including the KNMI, the fire brigade and ProRail. “There were several scenarios, only one of which stated that storm Poly would have serious consequences,” explains the KNMI spokesperson. “The chance of code red was therefore still very small.”
“Not until around 7 a.m. did measurements come in that indicated code red. That was about two to three hours before the northern provinces would notice the effects of the storm.”
According to the KNMI, it was not previously possible to issue code red. “Had we been earlier, code red might have lost its credibility,” the spokesperson explained. “We are careful with code red. Nothing could have happened.”
Nevertheless, the KNMI also believes that things can be done better. That is why the weather institute continues to research how the weather warnings can be improved. “People need to be informed in time about the impact a storm can have.”
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2023-07-05 15:16:00
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