Record cold winter lands Met Office in hot water

Britain shivered through its coldest winter in 30 years - and the Met Office failed to predict it

LAST UPDATED 2:47 PM, MARCH 2, 2010

This winter is officially the coldest for more than 30 years - and the Met Office is facing criticism for its prediction last year of warmer than average temperatures.

Despite predicting that there was only a 20 per cent chance of a colder than average winter, the Met Office's records show an average temperature of just 1.5C. That's 2.2C below the norm and the coldest winter since 1978/79, making it the sixth coldest since records began.

Scotland and Northern Ireland, meanwhile, have to look even further back to 1962-3 to recall a colder winter. The temperature in Altnaharra in northern Scotland fell as low as a staggering -22C on January 8.

The Met Office's failure to predict this year's cold winter has been seized upon once again by its opponents, who compare the organisation unfavourably with its competitors. Last autumn it was forced onto the defensive when the "barbecue summer" it had predicted turned out to be a wash-out.

The bad press comes at a particularly inopportune time, because the BBC has put its weather forecasting contract out to tender and New Zealand-based Metra, which already provides the weather graphics we see on BBC forecasts, is hoping to steal it from under the nose of the Met Office. A Metra source told the press last month: "The BBC is not happy with the service it has been getting from the Met Office; it thinks it's too expensive."

But one thing the Met Office's detractors, such as the Daily Mail, fail to realise is that the forecast was given in terms of percentages not facts. The possibility of a cold winter was never actually discounted - it was given as a probability of 20 per cent, which is still quite high. You wouldn't fly in a plane that had a 20 per cent chance of falling out of the sky, after all.

John Hammond, a spokesman for the Met Office, did say that he was "disappointed that [their] seasonal forecasts didn't give a prediction or stronger probability of a colder winter". But he told the Daily Mail: "Given [Britain's] geographical position we are very much at a crossroads of weather patterns and that makes it more challenging... We will continue to do the research and make sure [forecasts] improve in the future."

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"But one thing the Met Office's detractors, such as the Daily Mail, fail to realise is that the forecast was given in terms of percentages not facts, the possibility of a cold winter was never actually discounted - it was given as a probability of 20 per cent, which is still quite high. You wouldn't fly in a plane that had a 20 per cent chance of falling out of the sky, after all." Oh, come on, that's a bit weak isn't it? What about the fact that 6 out of the last 7 seasonal forecasts were wrong? What about the fact that in 2001 the Met Office was claiming that a generation was growing up who would not experience snow? So, given that the Met Office forecast this winter to be milder than average, there was still a 20% chance that it would be colder than average - oh, yes, but what were the odds that it would not only be colder than average, but that it would be as cold AS IT WAS, the coldest winter, or second coldest in the last 50 years, given all that global warming that's supposed to have taken place? 0.1% perhaps? Then, of course, there was Piers Corbyn, who forecast a cold winter back in July last year, and refined his forecast in November to say that apart from one week around Christmas it would be bitterly cold with masses of snow the whole season. And he was right, as usual. Why? Because he's not captive to this stupid climate change agenda, and because he takes account of the sun (yes, that big ball in the sky) and the moon and the jetstream, three things that the Met Office don't even consider. Don't expect things to improve at the Met office until Robert Napier, ex-WWF eco-imperialist, and Julia Slingo, Chief Scientist are out of the way - two persons who have sold theirs souls to the Climate Change devil for filthy lucre's sake.

Posted by Kevin McGrane at 4:06pm on March 2, 2010

McGrane you really are an idiot. Still confusing weather and climate like all the ignorant dorks who pratr on about the big 'conspiracy. Weather forecasting is an inexact science, you can do no better, probably far worse, and Corbyn doesn't get it right all the time, the sun has actually been at its least active for the last decade and the planet has warmed. He is a self publicist, hardly surprising since he sells his 'forecasts' so he would brag about always being right wouldn't he? You take what you think backs up your childish assertions and disgard anything inconveniently proving the opposite. It was colder this year in EUROPE because of a change to the wind direction bringing cold air down from the arctic. In other parts of the world it was hotter than usual, but I don't expect little minds to stretch beyond their tiny comfort zone. Do you have any7 idea how deranged you sound? 'eco-imperialist'... 'Climate Change devil' ... 'filthy lucre's sake'. As if everything in this world doesn't include money. You are a simpleton, I'm amazed you can ever write. Go away and grow up, and expect the rest of your life to become increasingly difficult, dangerous and revealing that you were totally wrong. Climate change is an established fact Kevin, one day even people as challenged as you will realise that fact and shut your silly mouths.

Posted by foolonthehill at 12:16pm on March 3, 2010

As usual, Peter, you have nothing useful to say. You know you can't argue your case, so all you have left is childish rantings, abuse and ad hominems. You are worse than a playground bully. You can't stand anyone who can expose your prejudices for what they are - sick. "Do you have any idea how deranged you sound?" I leave that for the readers to decide - juxtaposed with your disgusting response, I'm sure many would consider that applies more to your response. If you hadn't noticed, ever since the eco-imperialist Napier got to be chairman of the Met Office he steered it into climate change territory - but don't take my word for it: read the first annual report of the Met Office after he joined - he says that's what he's introduced. And the Met office is not only involved in weather forecasting but climate projections. The main point of my response, if you hadn't noticed, was that the Met office were defending themselves in that there was still a 20% chance that the winter would be harder than AVERAGE. That's totally disingenuous. That doesn't reflect the probability for the winter as cold as we actually had, and if global warming is affecting UK then the probability of that should be on the decline. Let's say you had asked the Met office in November to give the odds on as cold a winter as we actually had - it would certainly not be 20%. If there had been no supposed global warming the odds based on historical probabilities would be maybe 3%. What you don't seem to understand, Peter, is that if the UK is supposed to be on a warming trend (and that's what the MET office projections out to 2080 say) then that 3% would be shrinking year by year to well below 1%. Of course Piers Corbyn doesn't get it right all the time. That's irrelevant. The fact is, he is right much more often than the Met office, and he doesn't have anything like the resources they have. And the probable reason is that, as an astrophysicist, he take account of factors from outside the earth that can influence weather. Like that big yellow thing in the sky, which the Met office treats as an invariant forcing. What's more, he doesn't factor in the pathetic unscientific nonsense about climate change as a sub-plot to weather forecasting as the Met Office do. As for climate change being an established fact - who's arguing with that? Climate has been changing for thousands of years, and there's not a thing you or I are going to be able to do about it. What is NOT an established fact is whether the climatic changes we have seen over the last century can be attributed to man, predominantly. I say it's utter rubbish to suggest it is. Even Phil Jones, head of the CRU, recently admitted that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995. I'd like to know how you would extract a theoretically significant anthropogenic signal trend from a non-statistically significant measured trend, in amongst strong natural variation. Get back to us when you've done your homework.

Posted by Kevin McGrane at 11:48am on March 4, 2010