Do we really need the met service?

Dennie Quill, Contributor

Our disaster planning apparatus went into high gear last week as the country prepared for a possible hit by Tomas. Here was an example of the prime minister taking charge and getting all the agencies to demonstrate the required sense of urgency. Some persons felt we went overboard, but I can identify with the refrain, "better to be safe than sorry."

But we also learnt something else in the past week, and this is how pathetic the National Meteorological Service is at predicting the path and impact of a storm. When one sees the head of the service hosting a press conference it signals a kind of seriousness that caused several people to batten down while others took the hard decision to stock up with three weeks' supply of food.

In times past my father could look at the sky and make a prediction of whether it would rain or not. Amazingly, he was usually right and it had nothing to do with his arthritic joints. The ability to tell the weather by recognising certain signs of nature is an art form of sorts handed down through the ages. But now with radars, assorted maps, computers and hurricane hunters we expect a greater level of accuracy. Sadly, there are times when the predictions are way off.

On lock down

So how come we were not told that the Tomas storm would veer from the island and only a few parishes would have been impacted? In reality the entire island was on lock down from Thursday.

It is easy to say I knew we would have been spared the wrath of Tomas, after the fact. However, my birds were chirping away and when a storm is in the air they usually take flight. I am not at all suggesting a new branch of science that studies the movement of birds. They say meteorology is not an exact science, but I have noticed that whenever I travel to the US, the forecasts are remarkably accurate, right down to the level of precipitation to expect. If they say there will be three inches of snow, you can plan for it. Last week the hurricane models supplied by private meteorologists in the US predicted that Tomas was heading for Haiti, slipping by eastern Jamaica.

It is important for the weather forecasts to be accurate so we can plan our daily activities. For example, a day at the beach can be positively or negatively affected by rain.

Lives affected

People's lives and livelihoods are affected by the weather, and they need to have confidence in the accuracy of the weather forecasts. Next time round many people may not listen to hurricane warnings because we were so spectacularly wrong this time. It seems to me more has to be done to improve our local prediction capabilities.

When it comes to weather predictions, the Government has few options. Should it be guided by the national service? Should it ignore the national service and look to any of the range of private model forecasts available?

Finance Minister Audley Shaw is always interested in budget-cutting ideas for the public service. maybe he needs to take a hard look at the met office to decide whether the services ought to be divested. Do we really need a national met office?

Dennie Quill is a veteran journalist. Feedback may be sent to denniequill@hotmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com