If the Met Office loses its contract with the BBC (News, Jan 18), it would be a huge blow, one of many rocking the organisation. The Government is keen to privatise it, it is losing commercial contracts to other weather forecasting organisations and the accuracy of its forecasts has been criticised.
Weather forecasting is a perilous business, though. Everyone remembers the mistakes and forgets the successes — the Met Office will never live down its disastrous storm forecast in October 1987. In fact, the vast majority of Met Office forecasts these days are accurate, and they are improving. A modern three-day forecast is better than a one-day forecast 30 years ago, and now we get five-day forecasts, which were unheard of in those days.
Unfortunately, there is no single standard for comparing the Met Office forecast results with other organisations. The crucial difference, though, is that the Met Office is exposed to public criticism, and when the weather turns bad everyone loves to blame it. But this is a dangerous game because it is undermining a world-class institution. We need its warnings of disasters, from floods, blizzards and storms, to some of its less well-known work, such as forecasting diseases and air pollution. National planning depends on its predictions of future climate. Without confidence in the Met Office we might as well go back to forecasting with bits of seaweed. We denigrate it at our peril.