"Adrian" wrote in message
...
On 2011-01-04, ronaldbutton wrote:
I see from todays papers that the Met Office had secretly forecast the
severe weather for December,I wonder if they are also predicting the
upcoming great warmup ?.
Or should I check with the great south London Pier first ?

Would those be the same papers which are the reason the Met Office won't
release its longer term forecasts? Are they crying for more blood yet,
because the Met Office "knew" but didn't tell us?

This was the response to these articles :-

"Following an article in the Radio times on Roger Harrabin, Environment
Analyst with BBC News, the Daily Mail have followed up with stories
highlighting how the Met Office provided forecasts for this winter to the
Cabinet Office, that indicated the risk of a cold start to the season.

We provided a long-range forecast to the Cabinet Office at the end of
October highlighting the risk of a cold start to the winter. This forecast
is used by government officials across the UK to support long-term planning.
We offer a 30 day forecast on our website which accurately highlighted the
cold weather in late November and through December.

We do not issue long-range forecasts to the public, as following research
they have told us that they are of little use to them and they would prefer
forecasts for shorter timescales. Therefore we offer forecasts for 6 to 15
days and 16 to 30 days ahead on our website.

The Daily Telegraph also followed up on the story in today's paper, but has
mistakenly reported that the BBC has decided to publish independent
assessments of the Met Office's performance on its website. In fact, Roger
Harrabin has begun a project within BBC News to evaluate the accuracy of
weather forecasters across the UK, looking at forecasts from 1 day ahead to
3 months ahead. The Met Office welcomes this initiative and is actively
engaged in the project."

Jon.