On 05/10/2017 12:32, Richard Dixon wrote:
On Thursday, 5 October 2017 12:21:56 UTC+1, Graham P Davis wrote:

Met Office computer forecast was also going for storms on the Sunday.
When someone asked me in the pub on Monday evening what the weather
would be like on on Friday at Wentworth - he was going to the golf
tournament - I warned him that there'd be storm force winds. In each
successive run of the computer forecast during the week, it looked as
though it was chickening out and if I'd seen the guy on Wednesday
evening, I'd've told him not to worry!

I think in Glenn Shutts' paper (think it might be an internal Met Office paper) on the storm about a "successful fine mesh forecast" (here fine mesh was 50km!) there was talk about a 5-day run being absolutely bang on - so this seems to tally with it !

Richard

I have a copy of the official report (unfortunately I can see neither a
MO number nor an author. There is a letter from one Norman Lynagh sent
to the Independent, which actually defended the Met Office from the
opprobrium heaped on it by the tabloids. One thing that came out of the
storm was the Met Office Press Office and I benefited by being the first
full time press officer (before me as a manager and a part time Press
and Public Officer.

The report is very matter of fact and doesn't try and obfuscate the
facts, in keeping with the scientific organisation the Met Office was in
those days. Not sure it would be the same today though.