Met Éireann - Far more than a joke!

When I came to Ireland all the way back in 2012, one of the first organisations of the state I really had any noteworthy interest in was the Irish meteorological service named , rather creatively, Met Éireann. My first impression was, to put it mildly, underwhelming. The website looked old-fashioned even by the standards of 2012, the app was equally unremarkable. Communications-wise, a closed-up clam would have been more talkative than the Met Éireann of the time, who seemingly didn’t exist outside of the realm of either the RTÉ studio or their own HQ. Both their Facebook and Twitter accounts hadn’t seen any major activity for months by the time I started following them back in 2013. It almost seemed as if the organisation was run by your stereotypical technophobic German bureaucrat, despite being an Irish body. In this way, the meteorological service did not differ majorly from their counterparts in Bus Éireann, Irish Rail, or any other Irish state body back in 2012. Their reputation among the population was equally horrible, although from my perspective, you’re definitely doing something right if the average Irish citizen hates your guts.

The face of Met Éireann until about a year ago

This remained largely unchanged over the years, and was one of the reasons why I started doing my own weather forecasts and eventually started publishing them on my blog and later my YouTube channel. However, by this time, a paradigm shift had appeared to start at Met Éireann. Where once, you’d have only seen or heard a meteorologist after the regular evening news on RTÉ 1, they had become noticeably more talkative, becoming regular interview guests on both TV and radio. Their social media pages became more active as well, with more regular updates on both regular weather and on any severe weather events. By the time Hurricane Ophelia hit Ireland in October 2017, the company was really on top of its communication game, and it managed both Ophelia and storm Emma, the “severe” snowfall event of March 2018, brilliantly in my opinion. Yes, I put severe in quotation marks, I mean hey, I went to school in the Austrian alps. 30 centimetres of snow is just another winter's day. Once we get to snowfalls around a meter, you can gladly get back to me regarding the “severe” part.

Then, in April 2018, Met Éireann launched their new mobile app and website. To paraphrase a certain sith lord: “most impressive!” both the app and the website look much more in tune with the times, and the functionality is significantly improved compared to it’s predecessor. The rainfall radar, which had previously been little more than a gimmick, now takes centre stage, and rightly so. Forecasts are now easily viewable, and you don’t need to have multiple browser tabs open to check buoy reports and the likes. This might be of limited interest to more “normal” individuals, but for amateur meteorologists like me, this is a major thing. The biggest change is however in the field of communications, both on their website, and on social media. From meteorologist commentary on severe weather events, to their communications style on Twitter and Facebook, Met Éireann has really opened up.

The new website is better by at least an order of magnitude, if not more.

Why am I writing all this now? Well, a few weeks ago, Seafest 2019 took place here in Cork, the largest maritime festival that Cork has seen in years. As part of the “Wild Atlantic Way” presentation, Met Éireann had a stand there themselves, and the meteorologists there were more than open about their jobs and their plans. They are now extending their services into crowdsourcing and utilising private weather stations like the ones operated by a certain blogger ;) to augment their station network, while at the same time planning to eventually publish data produced by their brand-spanking new HARMONIE weather model on their website, rather than just “sanitised” forecasts. This move towards open data is a MAJOR step forward for the organisation.

Now, I know that the typical demographic of jokers and barstool-know-it-alls will continue to decry Met Éireann at every turn. But as someone who has a bit of inside knowledge into just how hard it is to actually do a weather forecast, I have to say that Met Éireann is moving in the right direction. Here’s hoping they keep moving!