Michael McBreen took this photo of the recent snow in Ballyjamesduff with his drone.

Cusack weathers the storm

Met Éireann was accused of “scaremongering” this week when its head of forecasting attended a meeting of Cavan County Council to discuss its issuing of “too many” weather warnings.

Evelyn Cusack attended Monday’s meeting of the local authority to respond to a letter of complaint that issued from the December meeting of the council.

She told councillors that Met Éireann is “interested in the voice of the people in the area”.

Ms Cusack agreed that some people are frustrated by what they see as the issuing of too many warnings.

She explained, however, that warnings are designed to assist the citizens and stakeholders and are based on a European colour standard, so as not to appear as “the boy who cried wolf”.

The weather forecaster shifted some of the blame to the media for exaggerating the warnings.

She referenced, in some cases, a “media circus” and weather “Armageddon”.

In response, Independent Councillor Shane P O’Reilly said “I’m the reason you’re here. It’s absolutely wonderful that you are here because usually when we write a letter it’s put in the bin.”

He outlined that the persistent weather warnings are scaring the elderly people of Cavan. “It frightens people,” he said. “It’s stupefying people and it’s scaremongering.

“Elderly people take what is said very literally.”

Instead of the warnings, Cllr O’Reilly believes that people should use their own common sense.

“Go outside and look,” he suggests.

On the issue of media reporting, Cllr O’Reilly said: “The media have to do their job.”

He believes that there wouldn’t be an issue “if Met Éireann didn’t issue the warnings”.

Fine Gael Councillor, TP O’Reilly, chimed in on the debate.

“Old people are around much longer than the rest of us, they need to be given more credit.”

He agreed with Ms Cusack that the panic is caused by “media hysteria”.

Fianna Fáil Councillor, Aiden Fitzpatrick, was admitted being irritated by what he felt are exaggerated warnings. He revealed that when the orange weather warning was issued last week, some people were not taking it seriously due to the over use of warnings in the past.

The Cootehill man said: “Someone very close to me went to Cavan on Friday at six o’clock to get her nails done.”

She then struggled to get home due to the heavy snowfall.

At the moment, Met Éireann’s warnings are issued county wide. Meaning, while the weather may be a concern in one part of the county, another part may not be affected at all.

Evelyn Cusack revealed that Met Éireann are working on a flood forecasting service, which is due for completion in October of this year. She feels this should aid more localised weather forecasting.

Independent councillor Brendan Fay was frustrated by Met Éireann’s countywide warnings, explaining that schools in Belturbet closed last week based on the snowfall warnings, yet they were barely affected.

The meeting concluded with the council requesting Me Éireann issue less warnings.