Met Office privately predicted cold winter

Jan 4, 2011
Bishop Hill in Climate: MetOffice, Climate: Surface

The Mail has a story that the Met Office told the cabinet to expect a cold winter. This was back in October apparently. However, as we know, the public were not told of this, apparently because the Met Office's research had suggested that there was no demand for seasonal forecasts. I'm sure most readers think their reticence was more to do with the fiasco over  2009's barbeque summer.

The story, which was sourced from Roger Harrabin at the BBC, seems to tally with the claim in the Quarmby audit that a Met Office forecast about the cold winter was issued at the end of October. However, as we also know, the Met Office website at the time seemed to be suggesting a warm winter, and nobody has actually seen the cold forecast.

All very intriguing.

In related news, RP Jnr considers the Met Office's attempts to make assessment of its forecasting ability harder.

Article originally appeared on (http://www.bishop-hill.net/).