Meteorological Section (FOI)

Request  

In relation to the meteorology office, Department of the Environment.

A

What is the total cost of running the department in 2020.

B

How much income was brought into the department from private sources and what was the five highest areas of contribution?

C

Given that some of the live weather elements on www.gov.je have failed, namely Wind and UV, can you tell me when they failed and when they are expected to be restored.

D

Every school was having an air pollution monitor installed, why is this not showing on the air monitoring pages?

E

Why are weather warnings for the Island not generally available? ie directly on www.gov.je. They seem to appear on Facebook via third parties, the coastguard and sometimes the police.

Response

A and B

The total cost of running the Meteorological Section (Met), which is now part of the Natural Environment Group of Infrastructure, Housing and Environment, in 2020 was £1,211,655.

The Met received £614,512 of income in 2020, therefore the net cost was £597,143.

The following are the five highest sources of income:

• Aviation Meteorological services

• Climatological Data Reports

• Forecast Subscription Services

• Media Meteorological Services

• Public Meteorological Services

C 

UV Sensor

The UV Index sensor at Maison St. Louis Observatory failed in May 2021 and a replacement was sourced, however, upon installation a fault was discovered.

Both sensors were returned to the supplier for repair / replacement and evaluation and have now arrived back in Jersey.

However, the new sensor required that we make programming changes to our automatic weather station program, which involved working with the manufacturer and supplier, and it has therefore taken longer than expected for the data to return online.

Once testing and verification of the output is complete, which we anticipate will be in the near future, the data will be returned to the ‘Live Weather Observations’ page of www.gov.je  

Wind

The main live wind sensor, which is located at St Helier’s Harbour, is currently working and has a reliability greater than 99%.

The other wind sensors are not considered a core service and will soon be removed from the live data page.

However, data from the Les Minquiers sensors are due to come back online after programmed maintenance later in 2022.

Live weather observations for Jersey (gov.je)

D

The information you have requested is exempt under Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011, as it is accessible on www.gov.je as a result of previous Freedom of Information requests:

AirSensa monitors installed at schools (FOI) - February 2021

Installation of air quality sensors (FOI) - September 2020

Further information is also contained within the attached document:

Previous AirSensa request

E 

The Channel Island Weather Warnings serve to highlight weather to those authorities who require it, and are therefore distributed to core government services, authorities and agencies.

The Met also publish local weather warnings on Twitter ‘CI Weather Warnings’ (@Jersey_MetCI) which is available to all by following on Twitter. A link is provided at the end of the following page.

Jersey weather forecast (gov.je)

Local media outlets subscribe to this account and if they consider the warning newsworthy, may generate a story, which in turn may be shared on social media.

Any weather or conditions contained in the warning would also be included in the text of the most recent weather forecast which is widely available.

Article applied

Article 23 - Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.