Final Score For The Met Office Winter Forecast

Final Score For The Met Office Winter Forecast

Posted on Watts Up With That, March 3, 2009

Guest post by Steven Goddard

The UK Met Office famously forecast this past winter to be “milder than average.“

25 September 2008
The Met Office forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average.
Seasonal forecasts from the Met Office are used by many agencies across government, private and third sectors to help their long-term planning.

The meteorological winter is over, and the official results are in :

The UK had its coldest winter for 13 years, bucking a recent trend of mild temperatures, the Met Office has said.
The average mean temperature across December, January and February was 3.1C – the lowest since the winter beginning in 1995, which averaged 2.5C.

This missed forecast falls on the heels of two consecutive incorrect summer forecasts , both of which were forecast to be warm but turned out to be complete washouts.  However, the Met Office appears undaunted by their recent high profile forecasting failures, and they continue in their quest to educate the public about the imminent threat of global warming.

Peter Stott, of the Met Office, said despite this year’s chill, the trend to milder, wetter winters would continue.
He said snow and frost would become less of a feature in the future.
….
The Met Office added that global warming had prevented this winter from being even colder.

They have already warned that 2009 will be one of the five warmest years on record.

2009 is expected to be one of the top-five warmest years on record, despite continued cooling of huge areas of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Niña.

Just as they had forecast that 2007 would be the hottest year on record, prior to temperatures plummeting by nearly a full degree.

2007 is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998, say climate-change experts at the Met Office.

Based on their past accuracy with seasonal and annual forecasting, you might want to bundle up and buy some new rain boots.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/03/final-score-for-the-met-office-winter-forecast

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