Weather Preparedness Resources and Training

Met Office Weather Information

The Met Office provides a range of services that can help organisations monitor developing weather risks and prepare accordingly:

• Met Office Weather Warnings – provides advance notice of severe weather through Yellow, Amber and Red warnings.
• Met Office App – offers location-specific forecasts and warning notifications directly to mobile devices.
• Hazard Manager – a free service for Category 1 and 2 responders and resilience partners (you must have an organisational email address), providing early access to weather information, impact assessments and decision-support tools.

Weather and Flood Warning Information

Partners may also wish to monitor the following sources of flood warning and flood risk information:

• SEPA Floodline – Flood Warnings, providing alerts and forecasts for river, coastal and surface water flooding.
• Flood Guidance Statements (FGS) – produced daily for responder organisations, providing an assessment of flood risk and potential impacts across Scotland.
• Scottish Flood Forecast – offering a public 3-day outlook on emerging flood risk from rivers, sea, and surface water.
• 1st October News – Wetter autumn puts Scotland’s flood risk in focus.

Training Opportunities

A range of preparedness and resilience training opportunities are available to youth work organisations:

Met Office Training (see downloads below)

The Met Office offers webinars, guidance and training materials covering:

• Understanding weather warnings.
• Using Hazard Manager.
• Interpreting forecasts and impact-based warnings.
• Preparing for severe weather events.
• Community Resilience Winter Weather Online Course on 2nd November.
• Meteorology for Responders Online Lunch and Learn  on 4th November

Ready Scotland Learn

The Ready Scotland Learn platform provides free online learning resources covering:

• The foundations of emergency management in Scotland.
• Partnership working in emergency management.
• The role of community groups in emergencies.
• And links to other sources of (mostly) free learning on emergency topics.

Preparedness Resources

You may find the following resources useful when reviewing local plans and preparedness arrangements and talking with young people about their preparedness:

Ready Scotland resources:

• Emergency advice including household plans, emergency kits and finding information.
• Emergency planning for disabled people and carers (new page).
• Community resilience tools and resources.
• Social media toolkits to support your own messaging to your communities and networks.

Community Risk Registers (CRRs) – providing information on the key risks that could affect local areas and helping organisations understand the hazards most relevant to their communities.

Cyber Scotland’s advice on getting the basics right for your charity.

These resources can help organisations strengthen their own preparedness arrangements and support communities before, during and after emergencies.