Met Éireann has confirmed it is working on a new locally based weather warning system that will be installed by the end of the year.
Minister for Housing James Browne confirmed that the county-wide alerts will be replaced by a polygon-based weather warning system.
Browne was critical of Met Éireann during Storm Chandra and felt the weather warnings were not accurate enough for the places that ended up being flooded by incessant storm rain last month.
Among the places worst affected were his own constituency in Wexford where the river Slaney burst its banks and flooded dozens of premises.
RM Block
Met Éireann defended its actions before Storm Chandra stating that impacts and flooding risks, including mentions of river levels and soil saturation had been communicated to the public in advance of the storm.
Confirmation that the forecaster is developing a more localised weather warning system came in response to a parliamentary question from Fine Gael TD Willie Aird.
Browne confirmed that the forecaster was working on a polygon-based system that will divide the country into sub-county zones.
Polygon-based systems have been in operation in the United States for the last 20 years and they have replaced county and state-wide warnings which were regarded as too broad and not specific enough.
They are so called because forecasters use polygon-shaped areas for forecasting at the local level.
Aird said the recent spate of weather warnings showed that many are too broad and cause unnecessary disruption.
He said this can lead to widespread school closures and disruption when the threshold for the higher‑level warning has only been reached in one part of a county.
“The new system will bring clarity. It will end the unnecessary disruption that blanket county warnings can cause while still giving clear safety information to the people who need it,” he said.
He pointed to the heavy snowfall in January 2025 as an example of where a more targeted approach would have been appropriate.
“High ground areas of Laois, Kilkenny, Clare, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary were technically in red alert conditions with disruptive levels of snowfall, while lower‑lying parts of those counties had very different circumstances with mostly rain. A county-wide warning simply does not reflect that reality,” he said.
“People do not live their lives by county borders. Weather does not respect them either. This is a practical step that will help protect homes, businesses and lives.”
