With meteorological technology improving all the time, weather forecasts are becoming more accurate, according to Evelyn Cusack, head of forecasting at Met Éireann.

“We have some degree of confidence in about a week to 10 days at the moment,” she said, recalling her start in Met Éireann when forecasts were just two days ahead.

“We’re never going to get perfect forecasts because the weather is far too variable at our latitudes but hopefully it [accuracy] will continue to improve.”

Cusack is chair of the EUMETNET Task Team, which names storms in Europe. She says naming the storms is a useful method of increasing the reach and influence of communications around adverse weather forecasts.

Storms are only named when an orange or red warning is issued. The first National Met Service to issue a warning names the storm.

Similarly, the yellow, orange and red warning system Met Éireann uses is to indicate the degree of severity of the weather forecast.

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