Appendix 2 - Partner agencies
Perth and Kinross Council · 21 August 2024
Back to Climate Change and Sustainability Committee — 21 August 2024 and its agenda
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PKC - GENERAL Appendix 2 More information on partner agencies SEPA 1.1 SEPA are the ‘warn and inform’ agency for Scotland in terms of providing the Scottish Flood Forecasting Service (in partnership with the Met Office). This uses a network of over 250 rainfall, river and coastal monitoring stations across Scotland to generate data 24 hours a day. When this data is combined with meteorological data from the Met Office, it is used to produce the predictions of river, coastal and surface water flooding. 1.2 These predictions are communicated to the Council and other organisations via the national flood guidance statement, and ultimately via the Flood Alerts, Warnings and Severe Warnings to specific areas. They also provide localised versions to emails, telephone and mobiles for those people who have signed up to receive these via Floodline. 1.3 SEPA’s Flood Warning Development Framework 2022-28 sets out how they intend to maintain and improve the flood warning service over this period. For Perth and Kinross Council area this includes: Improvements to the Firth of Forth and Tay (FOFAT) flood warning scheme. Extensions to the existing flood warning services on the River Tay, the River Earn. 1.4 More detail about how flow and tide data provided by SEPA is used during a flooding incident can be found in the ‘roads and footways network’ section of the main report. The Met Office 1.5 As noted above, SEPA operate in partnership with the Met Office to produce the flood forecasts for Scotland. The Met Office are specifically responsible for the collection, interpretation and dissemination of meteorological information. 1.6 In parallel to weather forecasts, the MetOffice produce weather warnings and provide advice over potential impacts and travel disruption. They are also responsible for the naming of storms to allow consistent public messaging on storm events. 1.7 The Met Office started naming storms in 2015 and issue a list of names for the coming season each September. The list runs from early September to late August the following year to coincide with the start of autumn and the end of summer when there is an increased likelihood of low-pressure weather systems. In the UK a storm will be named when it has the potential to cause disruption or damage which could result in an amber or red weather warning. This is based on our National Severe Weather Warnings service, which is a combination of both the impact the weather may have, and the likelihood of those impacts occurring. Storms will usually be named based on the impacts from strong winds, but the impacts of other weather types will also be considered. For example, rain, if its impact could lead to flooding as advised by the Environment Agency, SEPA and Natural Resources Wales flood
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PKC - GENERAL warnings, or snow. Therefore 'storm systems' could be named based on impacts from the wind but also include the impacts of rain and snow. 1.8 The storm list and impacts on Perth and Kinross for 2023-24 are noted in Table 1 – Named Storms. Table 1 – Named Storms Name Period Weather Event Impact on Perth and Kinross Council Agnes 27-28 September 2023 Wind and rain Minimal Babet 18-21 October 2023 Rain Invergowrie flooded and other localised impacts Ciaran 1-2 November 2023 Wind and rain Did not cover Perth and Kinross Council area Debi 13 November 2023 Wind and rain Did not cover Perth and Kinross Council area Elin 9 December 2023 Wind and rain Did not cover Perth and Kinross Council area Fergus 10 December 2023 Wind and rain Did not cover Perth and Kinross Council area Gerrit 27-28 December 2023 Rain Flooding of basements in Rose Terrace, Perth. Sporadic flooding elsewhere Henk 2 January 2024 Wind and rain Did not cover Perth and Kinross Council area Isha 21-22 January 2024 Wind and rain Minimal – sporadic trees down Jocelyn 23-24 January 2024 Wind and rain Widespread trees brought down Kathleen 6-7 April 2024 Wind Sporadic trees down 1.9 Met Office named storms and colour coded weather warnings are issued and since October 2023, 72 yellow weather warnings, 6 amber weather warnings and 2 red weather warnings have been issued. One red weather warning coincided with storm Babet when Invergowrie and other settlements suffered flooding, however weather warnings do not always coincide with a named storm. An example of this is the weekend of 7 October 2023 when no named storm was issued but parts of Perth and Kinross suffered extensive flooding with an amber warning. 1.10 The Met Office are continuing to develop new approaches to weather forecasting and forecasting of the impacts from weather. Outputs from this research is likely to be incorporated into procedures used in Scotland through collaboration and discussion with the national resilience partnerships previously detailed.