On Monday, 25 February 2013 13:25:06 UTC, wrote:

Yes what happened to Jon O Rourke?

Jon's still about. I still hear from him regularly. Like a few others I believe he got a bad case of "newsgroup malaise".

The cold warning will be discussed by the forecasting team, the Chief
meteorologist (not a bench forecaster) and other parties before issue. All
web products are also scrutinised by the brand manager, so it is a team
effort and not rushed out.

Ahh I got wires crossed here. I was talking about general weather warnings not the cold weather ones. I have less I can add to this then!

And yes they will of course ensure that they are
likely to be correct but I think Lawrence is asking why they should be
issued at all? And the answer is that they are a good money earner paid for
by money out of the government's health budget.

Surely even then they're not going to issue forecasts willy-nilly just because it gets a few extra pounds in? Aside from your perception, do you have evidence of people *actually* doing this with that reason?

Again, it's a shame that this newsgroup tends to resort to bashing the Met Office when it's unlikely they'll come on here to defend themselves. It's like the Daily Mail Online at times in here. MO employees, over to you?

Richard