UK Met Office caught flubbing a 3 month weather forecast in 2012, BBC acquired dox via FOI, Met Office had withheld due to 'barbecue summer' embarrassment

3/28/13, "Met Office three-month forecast was 'not helpful'," BBC, Roger Harrabin

"The Met Office has admitted issuing advice to government that was "not helpful" during last year's remarkable switch in weather patterns.

Between March and April 2012, the UK experienced an extraordinary shift from high pressure and drought to low pressure and downpours. 

But the Met Office said the forecast for average rainfall "slightly" favoured drier than average conditions.

The three-month forecast is said to be experimental. 

It is sent to contingency planners but has been withheld from the public since the Met Office was pilloried for its "barbecue summer" forecast.

Last spring's forecast has been obtained by BBC News under Freedom of Information. 

The Met Office three-monthly outlook at the end of March stated: 

"The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier than average conditions for April-May-June, and slightly favours April being the driest of the three months."

A soul-searching Met Office analysis later confessed: "Given that April was the wettest since detailed records began in 1910 and the April-May-June quarter was also the wettest, this advice was not helpful."

In a note to the government chief scientist, the Met Office chief scientist Julia Slingo explains the difficulty of constructing long-distance forecasts, given the UK's position at the far edge of dominant world weather systems." photo of Roger Harrabin from BBC





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