Met Office
Penelope Endersby, Chief Executive | |
Parent agency | Department for Science, Innovation and Technology |
---|---|
Website | www |
The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office,
History
The new
Connection with the Ministry of Defence
Following the
It became an executive agency of the Ministry of Defence in April 1990, a quasi-governmental role, being required to act commercially.
Changes of ministry
Following a machinery of government change, the Met Office became part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on 18 July 2011,[8] and subsequently part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy following the merger of BIS and the Department of Energy and Climate Change on 14 July 2016.[9]
Although no longer part of the MOD, the Met Office maintains strong links with the military through its front line offices at RAF and Army bases both in the UK and overseas and its involvement in the Joint Operations Meteorology and Oceanography Centre (JOMOC) with the Royal Navy. The
Locations
In September 2003 the Met Office moved its headquarters from Bracknell in Berkshire to a purpose-built £80m structure at Exeter Business Park, near junction 29 of the M5 motorway. The new building was officially opened on 21 June 2004 – a few weeks short of the Met Office's 150th anniversary – by Robert May, Baron May of Oxford.
It has a worldwide presence – including a forecasting centre in
Forecasts
Shipping forecast
The Shipping Forecast is produced by the Met Office and broadcast on BBC Radio 4, for those traversing the seas around the British Isles.
Weather forecasting and warnings
The Met Office issues Severe Weather Warnings for the United Kingdom through the National Severe Weather Warning Service (NSWWS). These warn of weather events that may affect transport infrastructure and endanger people's lives. In March 2008, the system was improved and a new stage of warning was introduced, the 'Advisory'.[11]
The Met Office along with Irish counterpart
Weather prediction models
The main role of the Met Office is to produce forecast models by gathering information from
Flood Forecasting Centre
Formed in 2009, the
Seasonal forecasts
The Met Office makes seasonal and long range forecasts and distributes them to customers and users globally.
Met Office research has broken new ground in seasonal forecasting for the
Supply of forecasts for broadcasting companies
One of the main media companies, ITV produce forecasts for ITV Weather using the Met Office's data and animated weather symbols.
The BBC used to use Met Office forecasts for all of its output, but on 23 August 2015, it was announced that the BBC would be replacing the Met Office with MeteoGroup, a competing provider, as part of the corporation's legal obligation to provide best value for money for the licence fee payers.[25] The BBC still uses some Met Office data for certain forecasts, particularly severe weather warnings and the Shipping Forecast.
World Area Forecast Centre
The Met Office is one of only two World Area Forecast Centres or WAFCs, and is referred to as WAFC London. The other WAFC is located in Kansas City, Missouri, and known as WAFC Washington. WAFC data is used daily to safely and economically route aircraft, particularly on long-haul journeys. The data provides details of wind speed and direction, air temperature, cloud type and tops, and other features.
Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre
As part of its aviation forecast operation the Met Office operates the London
Air quality
The Met Office issues
The forecast is produced for pollutants and their typical health effects are shown in the following table.
Pollutant | Health Effects at High Level |
---|---|
Nitrogen dioxide Ozone Sulphur dioxide |
These gases irritate the airways of the lungs, increasing the symptoms of those suffering from lung diseases. |
Particulates |
Fine particles can be carried deep into the lungs where they can cause inflammation and a worsening of heart and lung diseases |
Decadal Predictions
The Met Office coordinates the production and collation of decadal climate prediction from climate centres around the world as part of its responsibilities as World Meteorological Organisation Lead Centre for Annual to Decadal Climate Prediction. These predictions are updated each year and a summary, the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update is published each year.
IPCC
Until 2001 the Met Office hosted the
High performance computing
Due to the large amount of computation needed for
Year | Computer | Calculations per second | Horizontal resolution (global/local) | Number of vertical levels |
---|---|---|---|---|
1959 | Ferranti Mercury | 3 kiloflops
|
(N.A./320 km) | 2 levels |
1965 | English Electric KDF9 | 50 kiloflops | (N.A./300 km) | 3 levels |
1972 | IBM System/360 195 | 4 megaflops
|
(300 km/100 km) | 10 levels |
1982 | CDC Cyber 205 | 200 megaflops | (150 km/75 km) | 15 levels |
1991 | Cray Y-MP C90/16 | 10 gigaflops
|
(90 km/17 km) | 19 levels |
1997 | Cray T3E 900/1200 | 430 gigaflops | (60 km/12 km) | 38 levels |
2004 | NEC SX-6 | 2.0 teraflops
|
(40 km/12 km) | 50 levels |
2006 | NEC SX-8 and SX-6 | 5.4 teraflops | (40 km/4 km) | 50 levels |
2009 | IBM Power6
|
140 teraflops | (17 km/1.5 km) | 70 levels |
2015 | Cray XC40 | 16 petaflops
|
(10 km/1.5 km) |
Customer service
Since 2012 the Met Office Contact Centre (known as the Weather Desk) has been part of Contact Centre Panel's 'Top 50 Companies for Customer Service' programme.[31]
In 2015 the Met Office won awards in the following categories:[32]
- Rated 1st Overall for Combined Channels
- Most Improved Overall for Social Media
- Rated 2nd Overall for Call Service
- Rated 1st Overall for Email Service
- Best in Public Sector
- Best Extra Small Centre
Weather stations
Reports (observations) from
Some stations have limited reporting times, while other report continuously, mainly RAF and Army Air Corps stations where a staffed met office is provided for military operations. The "standard" is a once-hourly reporting schedule, but automatic stations can often be "polled" as required, while stations at airfields report twice-hourly, with additional (often frequent in times of bad weather) special reports as necessary to inform airfield authorities of changes to the weather that may affect aviation operations.
Some stations report only CLIMAT data (e.g. maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall totals over a period, etc.) and these are usually recorded at 0900 and 2100 hours daily. Weather reports are often performed by observers not specifically employed by the Met Office, such as Air traffic control staff, coastguards, university staff and so on.
- Eskdalemuir Observatory
- Lerwick Observatory
- Penkridge weather station
- Prestatyn weather station[33]
- Stonyhurst
- Sutton Bonington
- Wye weather station
- RAF Benson
- RAF Brize Norton weather station
- RAF Coningsby
- RAF Cottesmore
- RAF Cranwell weather station
- RAF Kinloss weather station
- RAF Leeming weather station
- RAF Leuchars weather station
- RAF Linton-on-Ouse weather station
- RAF Little Rissington weather station (supported by RAF Brize Norton)
- RAF Lossiemouth weather station
- RAF Lyneham weather station
- RAF Marham weather station
- RAF Northolt weather station 51.55 N 0.417 W
- RAF Odiham weather station
- RAF Shawbury
- RAF Waddington weather station
- Wattisham Flying Station weather station
- RAF Valley
- AAC Middle Wallop weather station
Meteorological Research Unit and the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM)
Meteorological Research was carried out at RAE Bedford with instruments being carried by barrage balloons until the RAE facility closed in the 1980s.
The Met Office association with
FAAM
The Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM), part of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, is based at Cranfield Airport. It is a collaboration with the Natural Environment Research Council.[34]
The FAAM was established as part of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS),
Areas of application include:[38]
- Radiative transfer studies in clear and cloudy air;
- Tropospheric chemistry measurements;
- Cloud physics and dynamic studies;
- Dynamics of mesoscale weather systems;
- Boundary layer and turbulence studies;
- Remote sensing: verification of ground-based instruments;
- Satellite ground truth: radiometricmeasurements and winds;
- Satellite instrument test-bed;
- Campaigns in the UK and abroad.
Directors General and Chief Executives
- Sir William Napier Shaw 1905–1920
- Sir Graham Sutton 1954–1965
- Sir Basil John Mason1965–1983
- Sir John Houghton 1983–1991[39]
- Julian Hunt 1992–1997
- Peter Ewins 1997–2004
- David Rogers 2004–2005
- Mark Hutchinson 2005–2007
- John Hirst 2007–2014
- Rob Varley 2014–2018[3]
- Penelope Endersby 2018–[4]
See also
- Climatic Research Unit hacking incident
- Climate of the United Kingdom
- Climate change in the United Kingdom
- Burns' Day storm
- Eskdalemuir Observatory
- European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
- Great Storm of 1987
- Met Éireann, the Irish meteorological service, which separated from the UK Met Office in 1936.
- North West Shelf Operational Oceanographic System
- Winter storm naming in the United Kingdom and Ireland
References
- ^ "Met Office annual report and accounts 2021 to 2022". gov.uk.
- ^ "Meteorological Office Archive". Retrieved 5 December 2013.
In November 2000 the organisation underwent a corporate rebrand and officially changed its name to simply the "Met Office".
- ^ a b "Met Office Chief Executive stands down". Gov.uk. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
- ^ a b "Professor Penelope Endersby to be new Met Office Chief Executive". Met Office. Archived from the original on 18 October 2018. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
- ^ "Foundations of the Met Office". Retrieved 1 November 2022.
- ISBN 978-1-78326-917-4.
- S2CID 123788388.
- ^ "UK Met Office switches departments in Whitehall shake-up". Clickgreen.org.uk. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
- ^ "Machinery of Government Changes:Written statement - HCWS94". Hansard. 18 July 2016. Retrieved 22 July 2016.
- ^ "Met Office defence: Supporting operations". Webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk. 13 May 2014. Archived from the original on 5 July 2007. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
- ^ "Met Office warning colours". Metoffice.gov.uk. 19 November 2008. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ Ahlstrom, Dick (15 January 2015). "Storm-naming system yet to be put in place as Rachel peters out". Irish Times. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
- ^ "Met Éireann plans to start naming storms from next year". The Journal. 21 December 2014. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
- ^ "10 November 2015 - The Met Office has named Abigail as the first storm as part of the Name Our Storms project". Met Office.
- ^ "Storm names for 2019-20 announced". Met Office. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
- ^ "Experiences with a 1.5 km version of the Met Office Unified Model for short range forecasting". ametsoc.org. 25 January 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
- ^ "Met Office Atmospheric numerical model configurations". Metoffice.gov.uk. 5 May 2010. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ "Verification statistics and evaluations of ECMWF forecasts in 2009–2010 – Figures 11–15". European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts ecmwf.int. October 2010. Retrieved 10 February 2011.
- ^ "Flood Forecasting Centre moves to Exeter". Exeter Science. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
- ^ "Scottish Flood Forecasting Service". Sepa.org.uk. Archived from the original on 26 March 2015. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
- ^ "Long-range global and regional forecasts". Met Office. Retrieved 21 July 2017.
- ^ "World Meteorological Organisation GPC outlooks".
- S2CID 127165980.
- ^ Knapton, Sarah (17 October 2016). "The Met Office can now predict winter weather one year in advance". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
- ^ "Met Office loses BBC weather contract". 23 August 2015. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
- ^ "London VAAC". Metoffice.gov.uk. 19 November 2008. Archived from the original on 8 January 2007. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ "International Airways Volcano Watch". Icao.int. 26 March 2010. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ Overview of VAAC Activities presentation[dead link]
- ISBN 978-0-85265-229-9, p. XVI.
- ^ Mark Twain, Kevin McCurley. "United Kingdom Meteorological Office | TOP500 Supercomputing Sites". Top500.org.
- ^ "Met Office wins top Customer Service Awards | Met Office". www.wired-gov.net. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- ^ "Met Office Scoops Top Customer Service Awards". iGov News. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
- ^ "Prestatyn Weather website". Prestatynweather.co.uk. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ a b "MET Office Research facilities (website accessed: 12/08/10)". Webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 24 February 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
- ^ "Met Office – Boundary layer (accessed: 12/08/10)". Webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 18 June 2010. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
- ^ National Centre for Atmospheric Science Archived 15 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Directflight Limited official website". Directflight.co.uk. 1 April 2014. Archived from the original on 4 March 2000. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
- ^ FAAM web reports page Archived 9 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Henderson, Caspar (15 May 2006). "Reason and Light". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 9 December 2006. Retrieved 22 April 2008.
50°43′38″N 3°28′30″W / 50.72722°N 3.47500°W
Further reading
- Hunt, Roger, "The end of weather forecasting at Met Office London", Weather magazine, Royal Meteorological Society, June 2007, v.62, no.6, pp. 143–146
- Walker, Malcolm (J M), History of the Meteorological Office (December 2011) Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0-521-85985-1