AIBU to find missing extreme heat alerts suspicious?

[ProudCat]

I find it a bit suspicious that the Met Office has removed the extreme heat weather alerts from its forecasts.

You can still find the weather alerts hidden on a dashboard here https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/weather-health-alerts

Little bit odd though that one government dept (the Met Office) now suddenly doesn't carry any information from another government dept (the UKHSA). Surely the weather reporting service should report on the weather alerts?

I wonder what other weather alerts we're no longer going to be alerted to.

I thought this was just me! So odd and annoying to remove it.

It's annoying they've been removed, I don't understand why.

What is it that you are suspicious of? Do you have a conspiracy theory you would like to share?

Aren’t the two things different, though? Weather alerts from Met Office just show when temperatures are going to be disruptive - so when it’s snow/ice as well as hot you can have a red alert - just indicating the most disruption.

Heat health alerts from the UKHSA are about danger to public health from heat, so more about what the effects of the heat could be. So a red weather alert doesn’t always mean there’s also a danger to life from temperatures.

What are your suspicions? Why do you think it is happening?

What are you trying to hint at, OP?

there might be a heatwave that we are not being made aware of

because we do need a government notice for that, it's not like we would know otherwise 😂

Stop the mass hysteria that surrounds them?

What?! We are having a heatwave? If only I’d had the alert, I would have know about this.

Sit down, I have some very worrying weather news for you...😂

This heatwave is less threatening to health than the last one. Lower humidity, breeze, and slightly fewer hot nights. The last one, the heat didn’t drop much overnight. This time it’s been below 20 overnight.

The cynic in me would say it's to stop the country grinding to a halt like it did two weeks ago.

It's unpleasantly hot, has been for days but it really isn't as hot as it was when the red warning was in place for us (24th - 26th June)

The humidity and dew point isn't as high, although overnight temperatures have been miserable.

It hasn't been lower than 20c overnight here.

Nothing has been removed - they are not the same thing. Heat health alerts are about impacts to health and are not issued by the Met Office. There’s not been a weather alert because, although the weather is hot, there’s not expected to be widespread impacts on things like infrastructure or travel.

They can’t issue weather alerts just because it’s hot otherwise there’d be alerts all summer and everyone would ignore them.

Just seems odd to me. The weather health alerts (provided by UKHSA and called weather health alerts by the UKHSA) were on the Met Office website and app two weeks ago and now they're not. If you click the warnings and advice tab, where previously the weather health alerts were published, there's now nothing there. Instead, it's been strictly scaled back to only report on weather warnings.

I was just wondering why the weather health alert service and the weather forecast service, both of which are run by the government, can't provide the public with an overall picture, like they did 2 weeks ago, in a 'one stop shop' sort of way.

They have definitely been removed. They were there 2 weeks ago. Currently, the UKHSA is reporting: "Amber heat health alerts issued for the East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, London, South East, South West, Yorkshire and the Humber and the North West. Yellow heat health alert issued for the North East." Previously, these alerts appeared alongside the temperature for the day on the Met Office website just in normal weather checking.

Users name very apt for the question is this a reference to the OP?😁

But to answer that question, I'm suspicious that they've been removed in order to withhold information unless people go digging about in the UKHSA dashboard, which the average bod isn't likely to do. I'm not convinced that a number of people above are even aware they're currently under am amber warning, which they were previously when this info was published on the Met Office's website / app. It just always makes me feel a little bit uncomfy when the information given to the public is reduced.

I see nothing to be suspicious about.

It's very hot, and unpleasantly so in the middle of the day and early afternoon, but it isn't quite as intense as when it was in the high 30s just over a week ago.

There are still regular reminders to take in plenty of fluids, avoid sitting out in direct sun (especially with no suncream on), and to keep an eye on elderly people and children.

People also need to use their common sense.

You prefer it when information that was previously easily available to you is more difficult to find?

I saw the amber warning on my BBC Weather App today. I'm sure I did.

I do They are scared more ppl will demand air con as standard

Your use of the word ‘suspicious’ is giving me flashbacks to the canal poster 🤣

No they didn’t. Met Office issued amber and red WEATHER alerts. Red or amber alert (as I explained above) can also be for cold/icy/snowy weather. They are about disruption. They appear for heat (ime) when temps are over 35C - which we don’t have yet this week. Hence no alerts.

Heat health alerts are about health, and not the same as weather alerts.

Will I have to type this all out again before you read it, OP?

Aren't health alerts separate to weather alerts though? The ukhsa are for health and social care, the Met warnings are for the general population. Its why the ukhsa don't issue warnings for heavy fog, its not relevant to anyone the warnings are aimed at.