The Meteorological Office are a bunch of useless wankers

As a matter of historical record this is what Lord Patel posted on 11th April 2007

The Met Office have today issued their Forecast for Summer 2007 - this is it ...

Temperature

"There is a high probability (at least 70%) that mean summer temperatures will be above the 1971-2000 long-term average over much of western Europe, including the UK. Indications for this year suggest the odds for a particularly hot summer, similar to those experienced in 2003 and 2006 across the UK, are around 1 in 8."

Precipitation

"Prospects for rainfall are uncertain. However, there are currently no indications of an increased risk of either a particularly dry or a particularly wet summer." ENDS

Apparently this garbage is "derived using global forecasting models and statistical methods."

It is employees of this outfit that can tell us what the climate will be in 50/100 years but boiled down there is a 12.5% chance of a hot summer (if you want the Bayesian analysis) and it probably won't be very dry or very wet.

They helpfully add that "The summer forecast will next be updated at 10 a.m. 1 May 2007." Peer reviewed scientists my arse.

They did update on May 1st (see here)

Update to Met Office summer forecast

The Met Office issues a long-range forecast for the summer and then reviews it on a monthly basis. The latest seasonal forecast from the Met Office, updated today, still indicates that this summer is likely to be warmer than average.

Following the trend set throughout 2006 and the first part of 2007, seasonal forecasters say there is a high probability that summer temperature will exceed the 1971-2000 long-term average of 14.1 °C.

The Met Office will issue an update of the summer forecast on 30 May 2007.

The Pitt Report

Sir Michael Pitt was asked by ministers to carry out a review of the flood-related emergencies which occurred during the summer of 2007. The interim report of the Review was published today . It is being published now to achieve three objectives:

• to identify issues which need urgent action;

Here is the second paragraph ....

"The severe flooding which affected much of the country during June and July 2007 followed the wettest-ever May to July period since national records began in 1766. Met Office records show that an average of 414.1mm of rain fell across England and Wales – well over double usual levels (see Table 1). The additional volume of rain which fell from May to July was 31,140 million cubic metres – more than four times the amount of water in all the lakes in England and Wales combined."



and on a wider front ..



Nowhere will you find any critical remarks about the Meteorological Office forecasting. In fact forecasting is not mentioned ... A search for the word "Forecast" yields nothing.

"no indications of an increased risk of .... a particularly wet summer"

On September 7th The Met Office issued a sumary of the summer. Remember on May 1st in their revised forcast they said they said a high probability that summer temperature will exceed the 1971-2000 long-term average of 14.1 °C.

Here is the anomoly map published that day ...
That means the average for the summer was virtually unchanged from the 30 year average 0 except for tiny areas in the Western Highlands. That means they got it wrong in Spades )say 400% wrong) on precipitation and were totally wrong about the mean temperature.

You would have thought that the first and most critical recommendation is to see why the long range forecasting undertaken by the Met Office is so fucking piss poor... so worthless as to be useless.... and the "derived using global forecasting models and statistical methods." is meaningless piffle.

Maybe they could spend less time on telling us about the global climate in the next 50 years and spend more time, concentration and effort on improving forecasting methods.

Of course you will not hear a word about this scandalous record in the Press.