Met Office storm forecasts “save lives”, a minister has insisted amid criticism over flood warnings in the wake of Storm Isha and Storm Jocelyn.
Alex Burghart, the Cabinet Office minister, said that timely warnings from forecasters helped prevent widespread damage from the two winter storms that swept across the UK this week.
His comments came after the Royal Meteorological Society cautioned that too many warnings risked making people “complacent” about severe weather.
At least two people are known to have died as a result of Storm Isha. One, an 84-year-old man, was killed after a tree was blown down onto his car. The other, a man in his sixties, died after a traffic accident involving two vans and a fallen tree.
Responding to an urgent question in the House of Commons, Mr Burghart said: “The forecasting capabilities of our experts in the Met Office and the accuracy and speed at which they can warn and inform the public of incoming severe weather events does, with no doubt, save lives and protect our homes and businesses.”
The minister’s comment came after Prof Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said on Tuesday that “probably not a day has gone by” this week “without a weather warning”.
“There are so many of those, the concern is that people might become complacent,” she added.
