
Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years - edward
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/23/met-office-loses-bbc-weather-forecasting-contract
======
binarymax
I've lived in the UK for the past 8 years now (having lived in various places
in the East Coast USA for the rest of my life).

I learned quickly that English weather forecasts are useless past the current
day. It is probably due to the geographical location. East Coast US was
accurate to 3 to 5 days. I just use Dark Sky[0] to get weather for the next
several hours, which is mostly accurate.

Given the situation with the contract I see lots of back and forth noting
accuracy - but Met Office does just as good a job as anyone else, for probably
a much higher fee.

[0] [http://forecast.io](http://forecast.io)

~~~
ars
> East Coast US was accurate to 3 to 5 days

Interestingly in the US, the East Coast forecast is more accurate than the
West Coast.

This is because the trade winds in the US mostly move West to East, so most of
the Weather moves in that direction as well.

There are more weather sensors on land then in the Sea, so there is more data
available to make a forecast with.

~~~
velik_m
It's not just about the number of sensors. The clouds form over the sea.
Predicting when and where those clouds will form is much harder than
predicting when and where those clouds will move.

~~~
ars
Clouds form over land too.

When warm wet air meets cool air you get clouds. The goal is being able to
measure the humidity and temperature of those colliding air masses.

~~~
001sky
One needs to account for relative humidity, which the ocean provides. Much of
the US landmass between the pacific crestline and the rocky mountains is arid
desert (from the canadian border to mexico). Second, there exist ocean-
specific dynamics like el-nino, which don't really have an overland anolog.

------
rikkus
I half-jokingly tell people that if they get their forecast from the BBC (via
the Met), they should expect the inverse weather.

I wonder if the BBC has checked the quality of the forecasts based on what
actually happens? I use AccuWeather and the Aix Weather Widget (for Android)
because they're nearly always right (where I live, at least) - and gives me
much more useful information.

For example, I can't translate the Met's '50% chance of rain' \- for a whole
day - to real life. To me, that means it could not rain, or rain heavily all
day, or anything in between.

~~~
tedajax
I actually learned that the rain percentage is not the percentage chance that
it will rain but is in fact the percentage of the coverage area that they will
expect to get rain. So 50% rain meaning no rain at all or rain for the whole
day is entirely reasonable.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
I've always interpreted it as the percentage of time it will rain, i.e. if it
says 50% chance from 7 to 8, it will rain during about 30 minutes of that
interval and not rain during the other 30 minutes.

(equivalently, you could say it's the % chance that it will be raining if you
choose a given instant X in the interval).

I've never read an official interpretation but that seems to fit reality
(where I live) quite well.

~~~
nindalf
50% means that they ran the simulation say 10 times and in 5 of those
simulations there was rain in the area. How to translate that to real life -
you should probably carry an umbrella if you don't like getting wet. Also
interesting to note that weather presenters usually bump up the probability of
rain by 10-20%, because people complain about false negatives (rained when it
was predicted not to) rather than false positives (didn't rain when it was
predicted to).

If you're interested in a good intro to this topic I recommend the chapter on
weather prediction from _The Signal and the Noise_ by Nate Silver. Its a
fascinating read.

------
ablation
Rags like the Daily Mail are FUDding the hell out of this story. The
Guardian's take is at least a bit more balanced.

Personally, I think it's a good thing. I like the Met Office (and in the
interests of disclosure have worked with it on a couple projects) but it
shouldn't have an entitlement to providing weather data for the BBC.

I'd like to see something like MeteoGroup get the contract. Would be really
interesting to see what it could bring to the table.

~~~
jasoncartwright
True, although they fail to mention the quoted MP, Ben Bradshaw, is the
'Minister for the South West' and MP for Exeter where the Met Office is based
(and employ 700-800 people)

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rwmj
I've been using the Met Office Android app for some time. The app could use
polish, but the data is superb. If you want to know if it's going to rain in
the micro-region where you are now, there's nothing like it.

Edit: It's this one: [http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/mobile-digital-
services...](http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/mobile-digital-
services/weather-app)

~~~
ablation
I'd argue Weather Pro by MeteoGroup is far, far superior. The only thing I
find the Met Office app useful for is additional detail on severe weather
warnings.

~~~
berkut
Last few versions on Android they've totally broken from a usability
perspective IMO:

* Yellow location search button is now in the way

* Moving the menu to the top means you can't use it one-handed now

* The most useful thing in the app for me (rain radar) now takes two presses to get to, instead of just one

I'm not convinced the accuracy is any better than the Met Office app - the
only thing for me which made it more useful was the rain radar images which at
least give you some heads up as to rain...

~~~
rwmj
To be fair, the Met Office app has usability issues too. Basic stuff like
zooming / panning the map is hit and miss.

------
buserror
As a photographer, I try to follow up weather when I'm out and about. As many
people have reported, the met office is next to useless, even on the short
term!

One I've found works /wonder/ is the _Norwegian_ weather service at
[http://www.yr.no/](http://www.yr.no/) . I'm not kidding, these guys not only
give pretty accurate forecast, but they over england _and_ they provide it in
neat meteograms that are quite precise and easily read.

Now, how to explain that yr.no can predict weather in the UK and the met
office can't... Met office has FUDed the country with "Oh but it's difficult
in the UK, we're and island blah blah" but clearly, that's bollocks.

~~~
DanBC
Why does the met office get international recognition for accurate forecasting
if it's so useless?

[http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-
us/who/accuracy/forecasts](http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-
us/who/accuracy/forecasts)

~~~
pbowyer
I don't know, but I second the recommendation for yr.no. As a Brit, I find the
Met Office to be more inaccurate for 3-5 days ahead than yr.no. On the day
itself the Met Office isn't bad, but I look at
[http://raintoday.co.uk](http://raintoday.co.uk) instead to time my trips out
between showers. Perhaps it comes to timeframe, or vagueness.

------
noir_lord
Next up, Privatisation of the Met Office then.

Shame as while the BBC websites presentation of the data is pretty poor the
MET provide open data feeds (hard to see that continuing if they are
privatised) of 3 hourly forecasts out to 5 days for _5000_ locations that are
considerably more accurate and detailed.

[http://i.imgur.com/vuCklmn.png](http://i.imgur.com/vuCklmn.png) is their
example usage of the data.

~~~
Asbostos
That sounds like a slippery slope argument. You might as well worry about the
privatization of the NHS next. With this type of approach, arguments
degenerate into political partisan rhetoric and achieve nothing.

~~~
noir_lord
Shrugs, in theory you could apply slippery slope argument to just about any
conjecture on what will happen next.

However this Government has a track record of (badly) privatizing things and a
fairly clear ideological bent.

------
SixSigma
Here's my prediction:

30% chance of more than 1mm of rain tomorrow.

Just like every other day.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_United_Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_United_Kingdom)

    
    
        Month 	Jan 	Feb 	Mar 	Apr 	May 	Jun 	Jul 	Aug 	Sep 	Oct 	Nov 	Dec 	
        Rainfall ≥ 1 mm 
        days 	13.2 	10.4 	11.5 	10.4 	9.9 	9.6 	9.5 	9.9 	9.9 	12.6 	13.1 	12.7

------
simonswords82
I'm a techie and I've been using the Met Office service more recently as part
of obtaining my private pilots license.

Before I get to their ability to forecast correctly I need to say that their
tech appears disorganised to say the least. Check out this garbage:
[http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation/ga](http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation/ga).
Specifically the text under General Aviation services. They attempted to
release a new version of the General Aviation interface, sending all the
pilots at my local club in to a tizz. They fluffed the launch of this new
interface so badly they were forced to hit reverse and reopen the old app.
Looks like you can still register for the new app, but they're now supporting
and maintaining the old app too. Oh and to use the new app you need to create
a new account...I've no idea why.

If this is at all representative of the overall state of the Met Office
websites and systems I'm not surprised they're not the first choice for the
BBC.

Ok so that's not great. What about the weather predictions? Well, accepting
that we live in a somewhat changeable part of the world here in the UK, and
given that I'm not a meteorologist take this next bit with a pinch of salt. I
was due to fly at 1pm today. I shit you not the Met Office website stated
severe weather warnings with heavy rain due to hit at 3pm. I checked the
forecast all morning and rain was pretty much guaranteed at 3pm. The forecast
was so bad I warned my other half about it as she was due to drive long
distance. 1pm rolls around and it starts raining lightly. Okay - this must be
the start of the heavy rain, so I write off my flight. 3pm comes around and I
shit you not, bright sunshine and it's stayed bright and sunny ALL afternoon.
Literally the opposite of what was forecast. Apparently the heavy rain is now
due tomorrow.

Obviously the Met Office site now shows sunny with clouds. Thanks Met Office,
how very kind of you to update the weather forecast to match what you can see
out of your windows.

~~~
egwor
Have you tried accu weather? I typically find them to be most accurate, and
don't bother with the bbc's.

~~~
simonswords82
No I haven't I'll definitely give them a try. Thanks :)

------
richdougherty
Interesting that New Zealand's MetService/Metra is in the running. New Zealand
is an island like the UK, so weather forecasting is difficult here too.
MetService currently supplies the BBC's weather graphics.

[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&o...](http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11501635)

------
sago
I couldn't find anywhere that said the BBC were dropping the Met Office. Is
this FUD / standard media hype? From what I gathered the BBC has decided to
put forecasting out to tender. To which, the Met Office is very welcome to
bid. It _may_ end up meaning that the Met Office is gone, but not necessarily.

So while the Guardian headline is strictly true, some bits of the report make
it sound like it is a done deal.

~~~
bitlevel
This may be of help -
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34031785](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34031785)

------
gioele
Will the main requirement of the tender be being at least X% more accurate
than the current provider?

Or will it just be a matter of who will offer the cheapest service?

~~~
s_kilk
If weather predictions are basically fiction (which they seem to be), then we
may as well go with the cheapest fiction.

~~~
cryptoz
Weather predictions are not fiction. Some businesses pay millions for a
specific weather forecast (one that could dramatically influence the
profitability of a venture) in order to enable better planning. A good example
of the importance of weather and climate forecasting would be the Climate Corp
sale to Monsanto for ~$1B.

Predicting the future is really really hard. Over the last few decades we've
made a lot of progress and we're about to get a lot better, too.

------
tezza
I'm sure the £4.5M bonus pool paid for 'improved performance' really stuck in
the craw.

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/met-office-
st...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/met-office-staff-set-to-
soak-up-208m-in-bonuses--just-for-doing-their-job-10432757.html)

~~~
toyg
There is another subtext: the current government is on a privatization drive.
Met Office is a prime candidate for being spun off, since it's already
trading. Making them lose one of their biggest customers will force them to
find new ones (readying MO for full privatization) or failing that, put their
finances in an unsustainable position (readying MO for full privatization or
even shutdown).

The BBC has many ongoing fights with the current government, so this was
probably a relatively easy wish to grant in order to build back some favour.
Among other things, it could end up reducing expenses for them, so it's a win-
win as far as the BBC is concerned.

~~~
DanBC
The met office is already a "trading fund" \- which means they're required to
run on a commercial basis.

[http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-
us/who/management](http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who/management)

The BBC was not a huge amount of money for the met office. They have plenty of
other customers. (Sky, ITV, Channel 4, are other media companies.)

~~~
toyg
Being a trading fund only means that trading receipts must account for 50% of
revenues. It says nothing about where those revenues must come from, nor where
continuous capital investment must come from.

Their revenues are still 85% from government contracts (bid and no-bid)
according to 2013 accounts [1]. From a cursory read, I'd say it cost the
government £16m in 2013 and produced £12.3m in profit, with more than £170m of
revenue coming straight from governmental contracts and £30m from commercial
ones.

I can see people looking forward to cutting £16m from the yearly budget and
force all internal contracts to be bids, lowering that £170m bill. It makes an
awful lot of sense, from a certain perspective.

[1] [http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/n/e/Annual_Report-
web....](http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/n/e/Annual_Report-web.pdf)

------
dtf
Not sure if available worldwide, but there was a very interesting Radio 4
program recently, "What's the Point of The Met Office?", asking all sorts of
awkward questions of this venerable institution.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06418l5](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06418l5)

Of particular interest is the Met Office's constant demand for bigger more
expensive computers, and its recent moves into the more politically
contentious territory of climate change policy.

~~~
alecdbrooks
>Of particular interest is the Met Office's constant demand for bigger more
expensive computers, and its recent moves into the more politically
contentious territory of climate change policy.

It doesn't seem that interesting to me. One of the reasons supercomputers are
built in the first place is for studying weather and climate [0]. And
"politically contentious" or not, climatology is a reasonable thing for a
meteorological office to study. For example, the National Weather Service in
the United States does both.

Also, the Met Office has been involved in climate research [1] for a long
time, so it's hardly "recent."

[0]: For example:
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0829_050829_...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0829_050829_supercomputer.html)

[1]: [http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-
change/resources/hadleyc...](http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-
change/resources/hadleycentre)

~~~
dtf
I take it you didn't listen to the programme.

~~~
alecdbrooks
No. What is it about how the Met Office studies climate change and requests
new computers that is interesting? They both seem self-explanatory, so it
didn't seem like listening to a 28-minute program would be worthwhile.

------
jkot
Czech MET lost contract with major televisions long time ago. Not much has
changed, except science is now sponsored by state, not TVs.

------
Kenji
Gotta love this:

 _1 /Extremely alarmed by rumours BBC to drop UK Met Office in favour of
foreign weather forecaster. Vital 90 year old strategic relationship.

2/Not only weather forecasting. Shipping forecast, extreme weather/crisis
events/national defence. Madness if true. Govt must intervene_

No, government doesn't have to intervene. Silly man, competition drives
quality. We don't need a governmental lid on quality.

