Met Office fog warnings
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Met Office fog warnings
It's a foggy day here, so in the absence of traffic, two relevant questions...
1. Around 80% of our fog warnings from the Met Office come AFTER we report fog. (There's something mind-numbing about reporting 500m in FG and then, twenty minutes later, getting a fax saying 'fog may affect your airfield today...'). Is it just our unpredictable weather, or do other units find the same thing?
2. Do other units get their Met Office weather warnings (fog, frost, ice, strong wind etc.) by fax too? Why do they use fax when all other Met Office stuff (regionals, TAFs, METARs etc) comes on the AFTN?
SC
1. Around 80% of our fog warnings from the Met Office come AFTER we report fog. (There's something mind-numbing about reporting 500m in FG and then, twenty minutes later, getting a fax saying 'fog may affect your airfield today...'). Is it just our unpredictable weather, or do other units find the same thing?
2. Do other units get their Met Office weather warnings (fog, frost, ice, strong wind etc.) by fax too? Why do they use fax when all other Met Office stuff (regionals, TAFs, METARs etc) comes on the AFTN?
SC
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It's a foggy day here, so in the absence of traffic, two relevant questions...
1. Around 80% of our fog warnings from the Met Office come AFTER we report fog. (There's something mind-numbing about reporting 500m in FG and then, twenty minutes later, getting a fax saying 'fog may affect your airfield today...'). Is it just our unpredictable weather, or do other units find the same thing?
2. Do other units get their Met Office weather warnings (fog, frost, ice, strong wind etc.) by fax too? Why do they use fax when all other Met Office stuff (regionals, TAFs, METARs etc) comes on the AFTN?
SC
1. Around 80% of our fog warnings from the Met Office come AFTER we report fog. (There's something mind-numbing about reporting 500m in FG and then, twenty minutes later, getting a fax saying 'fog may affect your airfield today...'). Is it just our unpredictable weather, or do other units find the same thing?
2. Do other units get their Met Office weather warnings (fog, frost, ice, strong wind etc.) by fax too? Why do they use fax when all other Met Office stuff (regionals, TAFs, METARs etc) comes on the AFTN?
SC
I was reporting VCTS the other day, (there weren’t any Weather Warnings issued), subsequently the VCTS became present weather, 30 minutes later a Thunderstorm Warning came through on the Fax after the thunderstorms had ceased!
I blame it on the man at the Met Office who wears a suit and sandels!
We pay to have the weather warnings to be sent via Fax so we (as the customer) have obviously asked for them, when I was at the Met Office earlier this year, we was told that if an organisation wants a certain product and pay for it accordingly, they will supply it (providing it's Met related
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Surely the met warnings only arrive after the weather if the prevailing weather system is travelling west, as the met men are all sitting in Exeter, and presuming you are east of Exeter. I'm sure here at LTCC the warnings now arrive about 2 hours earlier than they did when they were based in Bracknell, or 2 hours later of course if the weather is coming off the continent!
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Met Warnings
Fraid it seems to be a common complaint.
A quick call to the local? office to tell then you are experiencing conditions they didn't see coming results in a quickly issued Warning by which time the wx has gone west.
IMHO it began when the Metman moved off the airfield, then to a city in the far north and thence to a green island to the west. All the local knowledge has been lost. TAFs are based (and scored for quality) on the METARs and vice versa! Spot the flaw here
A quick call to the local? office to tell then you are experiencing conditions they didn't see coming results in a quickly issued Warning by which time the wx has gone west.
IMHO it began when the Metman moved off the airfield, then to a city in the far north and thence to a green island to the west. All the local knowledge has been lost. TAFs are based (and scored for quality) on the METARs and vice versa! Spot the flaw here
