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For the UKMET model, see: Tropical cyclone forecast model.


The Met Office (originally an abbreviation for Meteorological Office, but now the official name in itself), is the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
's national weather
Weather

Weather is a set of all the Phenomenon occurring in a given atmosphere at a given time. Weather phenomena lie in the hydrosphere and troposphere....
 service, and a subsidiary of the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the Departments of the United Kingdom Government responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
. Part of the Met Office headquarters at Exeter
Exeter

Exeter Exeter was the most south-westerly Roman fortified settlement in Roman Britain and has existed since time immemorial. Exeter Cathedral, founded in 1050 is Anglicanism....
 in Devon
Devon

Devon is a large Counties of England in South West England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, but that is an entirely unofficial name, rarely used inside of the county but often indicating a shire....
 is the Met Office College, which handles the training for internal personnel and many forecasters from around the world.






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For the UKMET model, see: Tropical cyclone forecast model.


The Met Office (originally an abbreviation for Meteorological Office, but now the official name in itself), is the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
's national weather
Weather

Weather is a set of all the Phenomenon occurring in a given atmosphere at a given time. Weather phenomena lie in the hydrosphere and troposphere....
 service, and a subsidiary of the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the Departments of the United Kingdom Government responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
. Part of the Met Office headquarters at Exeter
Exeter

Exeter Exeter was the most south-westerly Roman fortified settlement in Roman Britain and has existed since time immemorial. Exeter Cathedral, founded in 1050 is Anglicanism....
 in Devon
Devon

Devon is a large Counties of England in South West England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, but that is an entirely unofficial name, rarely used inside of the county but often indicating a shire....
 is the Met Office College, which handles the training for internal personnel and many forecasters from around the world. The current chief executive is John Hirst.

History

Established in 1854 as a small department within the Board of Trade
Board of Trade

The Board of Trade is a committee of the Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, originating as a committee of inquiry in the 17th century and evolving gradually into a government department with a diverse range of functions....
 under Robert FitzRoy
Robert FitzRoy

Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, and as a pioneering meteorology who made accurate weather forecasting a reality....
 as a service to mariners
Sailor

A sailor or mariner is a person who navigates ships or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses....
. The loss of the passenger vessel the Royal Charter and 459 lives off the coast of Anglesey
Anglesey

Anglesey is an island and principal areas of Wales off the northwest coast of Wales, with a predominantly Welsh language-speaking population. It is connected to the mainland by two bridges spanning the Menai Strait: the original Menai Suspension Bridge , designed by Thomas Telford in 1826; and the newer reconstructed Britannia Bridge ; which...
 in a violent storm in October 1859 led to the first gale warning service. In 1861 FitzRoy had established a network of 15 coastal stations from which visual gale warnings could be provided for ships at sea.

The development of the electric telegraph in the 1870s
1870s

Events and Trends...
 led to the more rapid dissemination of warnings and also led to the development of an observational network which could then be used to provide synoptic analyses.

In 1879 the Met Office started providing forecast to Newspapers.

Following the First World War
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
, the Met Office later became part of the Air Ministry
Air Ministry

The Air Ministry was formerly a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force....
 in 1920. In 1936 the Met Office split with services to the Royal Navy
Royal Navy

The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British Armed Forces . From the mid-18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s....
 being provided by their own forecasting services.

It currently holds a quasi-governmental role, being required to act commercially, but also remaining an executive agency
Executive agency

An executive agency, also known as a next-step agency, is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly or Northern Ireland Executive....
 of the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the Departments of the United Kingdom Government responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
. A little known branch of the Met Office known as the Mobile Met Unit
Mobile Meteorological Unit

The Mobile Meteorological Unit is a part of the United Kingdom Met Office that provides meteorological and environmental support to deployed elements of the UK?s joint forces, in order to enhance the effectiveness of national or combined contingency operations....
 (MMU) accompany forward units in times of conflict advising the armed forces of the prevailing conditions for battle, particularly the RAF. The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

The Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change ? named in honour of George Hadley ? is part of, and based at the headquarters of the Met Office in Exeter....
 is also part of the Met Office.

Locations


In 2003 the Met Office moved its headquarters to Exeter
Exeter

Exeter Exeter was the most south-westerly Roman fortified settlement in Roman Britain and has existed since time immemorial. Exeter Cathedral, founded in 1050 is Anglicanism....
, in Devon
Devon

Devon is a large Counties of England in South West England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, but that is an entirely unofficial name, rarely used inside of the county but often indicating a shire....
 from its previous location of Bracknell
Bracknell

Bracknell is a town in the Bracknell Forest borough of Berkshire, England. It lies 18 km to the south-east of Reading, Berkshire, 16 km southwest of Windsor, Berkshire and 53 km west of London....
 in Berkshire
Berkshire

Berkshire is a Home Counties in the South East England of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1958, and Letters patent issued confirming...
, and it has a worldwide presence including a forecasting centre in Aberdeen
Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous City status in the United Kingdom and one of Scotland's 32 Local government in Scotland Council areas of Scotland....
, and offices in Gibraltar
Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory shares a border with Spain to the north....
 and on the Falklands. Other outposts lodge in establishments such as the (JCMM) at University of Reading
University of Reading

The University of Reading is a university in the England town of Reading, Berkshire. Established in 1892, receiving its Royal Charter in 1926, the University has a long tradition of research, education and training at a local, national and international level....
 in Berkshire, the (JCHMR) site at Wallingford in Oxfordshire, and there is also a Met Office presence at many Army and Air Force bases within the UK and abroad. Royal Navy weather forecasts are generally provided by naval officers, not Met Office personnel.

Ukmo Exeter Panorama

Forecasts


The Shipping Forecast

One of the British stalwarts the Shipping Forecast
Shipping Forecast

The Shipping Forecast is a four-times-daily BBC radio broadcast of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the coasts of the British Isles....
 is produced by the Met Office and broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history....
. The Shipping Forecast has long been of real interest to, and vital to the safety of, mariners traversing the Sea Areas around the British Isles
British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include Great Britain and Ireland, and numerous smaller islands....
, and its broadcast on radio is still avidly listened to. Less vitally, the Shipping Forecast has been the subject of both books and song lyrics.

Weather Forecasting and Warnings

At the Met Office, they have the responsibility to issue Severe Weather Warnings for the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 through the National Severe Weather Warning Service
National severe weather warning service

The National Severe Weather Warning Service is a service produced by the UK Met Office which informs the public of the United Kingdom of severe weather which may damage the country's infrastructure and endanger lives....
 (NSWWS). These warn of weather events that may affect transport infrastructure
Infrastructure

Infrastructure can be defined as the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise , or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function....
 and endanger people's lives. In March 2008, the system was improved and a new stage of warning was introduced, the 'Advisory'.

Their main role is to produce forecast models by gathering all the information from satellites in space
Space

Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which Physical body and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physics usually consider it, with time, to be part of the boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime....
 and observations on earth, then processing it using supercomputers which produce a variety of models, collectively known as the Unified Model
Unified Model

The Unified Model is the collection of Numerical Weather Prediction computer models used by the United Kingdom Met Office. It includes the main suite of a Global Model, a UK and North Atlantic model and a high resolution UK model, in addition to a variety of Crisis Area Models and other models that can be run on demand....
. If necessary, forecasters may then make adjustments to the forecasts. This main bulk of data is then passed on to companies who acquire it. In particular, two of the main media companies, the BBC and ITV
ITV

ITV is a public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom television network of British television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC....
 produce forecasts using the Met Office's data. At the BBC Weather Centre, they are continuously updated on the latest information arriving by computer, or by fax
Fax

Fax is a telecommunications technology used to transfer copies of documents, especially using affordable devices operating over the telephone network....
 and e-mail
E-mail

Electronic mail, often abbreviated as e-mail, email, E-Mail, or eMail, is any method of creating, transmitting, or storing primarily text-based human communications with digital communications systems....
. The BBC's new graphics
BBC Weather

BBC Weather is the BBC's department in charge of preparing and broadcasting weather forecasts and is now part of BBC News. The Broadcast Meteorologists are employed by the Met Office....
 are used on all of their television weather broadcasts, but ITV
ITV

ITV is a public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom television network of British television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC....
 use animated weather symbols. This is mainly how the public are informed of weather events which may affect day-to-day life.

World Area Forecast Centre

The Met Office is also one of only two World Area Forecast Centres or WAFCs, and is referred to as WAFC London. The other WAFC is located in Missouri, USA but known as WAFC Washington. WAFC data are used daily to safely and economically route aircraft, particularly on long-haul journeys. The data provide details of wind speed and direction, air temperature, cloud type and tops, and other features of interest to the aviation community, such as volcanic ash eruptions.

Air Quality

The Met Office issues air quality
Air Quality Index

The Air Quality Index is a standardizationized indicator of the air quality in a given location. It uses the measure of particulates and contaminatants in the air to determine how clean the air is....
 forecasts made using NAME
NAME (dispersion model)

The NAME atmospheric dispersion modeling was first developed by the UK's Met Office in 1986 after the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, which demonstrated the need for a method that could predict the spread and deposition of radioactive gases or material released into the atmosphere....
, the Met Office's medium-to-long-range atmospheric dispersion model. It was originally developed as a nuclear accident model following the Chernobyl accident in 1986, but has since evolved into an all-purpose dispersion model capable of predicting the transport, transformation and deposition of a wide class of airborne materials. NAME is used operationally by the Met Office as an emergency response model as well as for routine air quality forecasting.

The forecast is produced for a number of different 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


High Performance Computing

Due to the large amount of computation needed for Numerical Weather Prediction
Numerical weather prediction

Numerical weather prediction uses current weather conditions as input into mathematical models of the atmosphere to weather forecasting. While the first efforts to accomplish this were done in the 1920's, it wasn't until the advent of the computer that it was feasible to do in real-time....
 and the Unified model
Unified Model

The Unified Model is the collection of Numerical Weather Prediction computer models used by the United Kingdom Met Office. It includes the main suite of a Global Model, a UK and North Atlantic model and a high resolution UK model, in addition to a variety of Crisis Area Models and other models that can be run on demand....
, the Met Office has had some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. In November 1997 the Met Office supercomputer was ranked third in the world..
Year Computer Calculations a second Horizontal Resolution (Global/local) Number of Vertical levels
1959 Ferranti Mercury
Ferranti Mercury

The Mercury was an early 1950s commercial computer built by Ferranti. It was a development of the famous Manchester Mark 1, adding a floating point unit for improved performance, and increased reliability by replacing the Williams tube memory with core memory and using more solid state components....
  		3Kflops (N.A./320 km) 2 levels
1965English Electric KDF9
English Electric KDF9

KDF9 was an early British computer designed and built by English Electric, later English Electric Leo Marconi, EELM, later still incorporated into International Computers Limited....
  		50Kflops(N.A./300 km)3 levels
1972IBM System/360 195 4Mflops(300 km/100 km)10 levels
1982CDC Cyber
CDC Cyber

The CDC Cyber range of mainframe computer-class supercomputers were the primary products of Control Data Corporation during the 1970s and 1980s....
 205 		200Mflops(150 km/75 km)15 levels
1991Cray Y-MP C90
Cray C90

The Cray C90 series was a vector processor supercomputer launched by Cray Research in 1991. The C90 was a development of the Cray Y-MP architecture....
/16 		10Gflops(90 km/17 km)19 levels
1997Cray T3E
Cray T3E

The Cray T3E was Cray Research's second-generation massively parallel supercomputer architecture, launched in 1995. Like the previous Cray T3D, it was a fully distributed memory machine using a 3D torus topology interconnection network....
 900/1200 		430Gflops(60 km/12km)38 levels
2004NEC SX-6
NEC SX-6

The SX-6 is a supercomputer built by NEC Corporation that debuted in 2001; the SX-6 was sold under license by Cray Inc. in the U.S. Each SX-6 single-node system contains up to eight vector processors, which share up to 64 GB of computer memory....
2.0Tflops(40km/4km)50 levels


Weather stations

Reports (observations) from weather stations
Weather station

A weather station is a facility with instruments and equipment to make observations of Earth's atmosphere conditions in order to provide information to make weather forecasting and to study the weather and climate....
 vary considerably. They can be automatic (totally machine produced), semi-automatic (part-machine and part manual), or manual. Some stations produce manual observations during business hours and revert to automatic observations outside these times. Many stations now also feature recent innovations such as "present weather" sensors, CCTV
Closed-circuit television

Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors.It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly transmitted, though it may employ point to point wireless links....
, etc.

Some stations have limited reporting times, while other report continuously, mainly RAF and Army Air Corps stations where a manned met office is provided for military operations. The "standard" is a once-hourly reporting schedule
Schedule

Schedule generally refers to:* a timetable* an airline timetable* the act of schedulingSchedule may also refer to:* Schedule , a list of actions from a set of transactions in databases...
, but automatic stations can often be "polled" as required, while stations at airfields regularly 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
Aviation

File:Norwegian military Bell 412SP helicopters.jpgAviation refers to activities involving man-made flying devices , including the people, organizations, and regulatory bodies involved with them....
 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, e.g. Air traffic control
Air traffic control

Air traffic control is a service provided by ground-based Air traffic controller who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air. The primary purpose of ATC systems worldwide is to separate aircraft to prevent collisions, to organize and expedite the flow of traffic, and to provide information and other support for pilots when able....
 staff, Coastguards, University
University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education....
 staff, etc.

  • Penkridge weather station
    Penkridge weather station

    Penkridge weather station is a weather station at Penkridge in Staffordshire, England, operated by the Met Office.The station is 101 m above mean sea level....
  • Prestatyn weather station
  • Wye weather station
    Wye weather station

    Wye Weather Station is a Met Office weather station in Wye, Kent, England.The station is above mean sea level.These are average temperature and rainfall figures taken between 1971 and 2000 at the station:...
  • RAF Coningsby
    RAF Coningsby

    RAF Coningsby , is a Royal Air Force station in Lincolnshire, England. It has been commanded by Group Captain John Hitchcock since 15 December 2008 ....
  • RAF Lossiemouth
    RAF Lossiemouth

    RAF Lossiemouth is a Royal Air Force station to the west of the town of Lossiemouth in Moray, Scotland. It is one of the RAF's biggest bases and currently Britain's main base for Tornado GR4s....
     weather station
  • RAF Kinloss
    RAF Kinloss

    RAF Kinloss is a Royal Air Force station. It is near Kinloss, on the Moray Firth in the north of Scotland. The station is home to all of the Hawker-Siddeley Nimrod fleet in the Royal Air Force....
     weather station
  • RAF Leuchars
    RAF Leuchars

    RAF Leuchars is the most northerly air defence station in the United Kingdom. It is located in Leuchars, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland, near to the university town of St Andrews....
     weather station
  • RAF Leeming
    RAF Leeming

    RAF Leeming is a Royal Air Force station in North Yorkshire, United Kingdom.The station opened in 1940 as a bomber station during the Second World War....
     weather station
  • RAF Little Rissington
    RAF Little Rissington

    RAF Little Rissington is a RAF Aerodrome and former RAF station in Gloucestershire, England. It was once home to the Central Flying School, the Red Pelicans and the Red Arrows....
     weather station (supported by RAF Brize Norton
    RAF Brize Norton

    RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, about 50 miles west of London, England, United Kingdom, is the largest airbase of the Royal Air Force.This RAF station is home to Air Transport, Air-to-Air refuelling and Military Parachuting....
    )
  • RAF Marham
    RAF Marham

    Royal Air Force Station Marham, commonly known as RAF Marham, is a Royal Air Force station, a military airbase, near the village of Marham in the England Counties of the United Kingdom of Norfolk, East Anglia....
     weather station
  • RAF Cranwell
    RAF Cranwell

    RAF Cranwell is a Royal Air Force station in Lincolnshire close to the village of Cranwell, near Sleaford. It is currently commanded by Group Captain N Wharmby....
     weather station
  • RAF Waddington
    RAF Waddington

    RAF Waddington is a Royal Air Force station in Lincolnshire, England....
     weather station
  • RAF Odiham
    RAF Odiham

    RAF Odiham is a Royal Air Force RAF station situated a little to the south of the historic small village of Odiham in Hampshire, England. It is the home of the Royal Air Force's heavy lift helicopter, the RAF Chinook....
     weather station
  • RAF Boulmer
    RAF Boulmer

    RAF Boulmer is a Royal Air Force station near Alnwick in Northumberland and is currently home to ASACS Force Command, Control and Reporting Centre Boulmer, the School of Fighter Control, No....
     weather station
  • RAF Brize Norton
    RAF Brize Norton

    RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, about 50 miles west of London, England, United Kingdom, is the largest airbase of the Royal Air Force.This RAF station is home to Air Transport, Air-to-Air refuelling and Military Parachuting....
     weather station
  • AAC Middle Wallop weather station
  • AAC Wattisham weather station
  • RAF Valley
    RAF Valley

    RAF Valley is a Royal Air Force station on the island of Anglesey, Wales. It provides fast-jet training using the BAE Hawk.No. 4 Flying Training School takes Royal Air Force and Royal Navy pilots from 1FTS at RAF Linton-on-Ouse and trains them to fly fast jets, prior to training on an Operational Conversion Unit....


Notable former Directors General and Chief Executives

  • Sir William Napier Shaw
    Napier Shaw

    Sir William Napier Shaw Fellow of the Royal Society, , was a United Kingdom meteorologist. He introduced the air pressure unit millibar, as well as the tephigram, a diagram of temperature changes....
     1905-1920
  • Sir Graham Sutton
    Graham Sutton

    Sir Graham Sutton Order of the British Empire Fellow of the Royal Society was Director-General of the Meteorological Office from 1953 to 1965, and was Vice-President of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth from 1967....
     1954-1965
  • Basil John Mason
    Basil John Mason

    Sir John Mason, Order of the Bath, Fellow of the Royal Society is an expert on cloud physics and former Director of the UK Meteorological Office....
     1965-1983
  • Sir John Houghton 1983-1991
  • Julian Hunt
    Julian Hunt, Baron Hunt of Chesterton

    Professor Julian Hunt, Baron Hunt of Chesterton is a leading United Kingdom authority on turbulence modelling and former Director General and Chief Executive of the Met Office....
     1992-1997
  • Peter Ewins 1997-2004
  • Dr David Rogers 2004-2005
  • Mark Hutchinson 2005-2007
  • John Hirst 2007-


See also

  • Burns' Day storm
    Burns' Day storm

    The Burns' Day Storm occurred on January 25–January 26, 1990, over north-western Europe, and is one of the strongest storms on record. Starting on the birthday of Scotland poet Robert Burns, it caused widespread damage and hurricane-force winds over a wide area....
  • Climate of the United Kingdom
    Climate of the United Kingdom

    The climate of the United Kingdom is classified as a mid-latitude oceanic climate , with warm summers, cool winters and plentiful precipitation throughout the year....
  • Eskdalemuir Observatory
    Eskdalemuir Observatory

    The Eskdalemuir Observatory is located near Eskdalemuir, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Built in 1904, its remote location was chosen to minimise electrical interference with geomagnetic instruments, which were relocated there from Kew Gardens in 1908 after the advent of electrification in London led to interference with instruments....
  • Great Storm of 1987
    Great Storm of 1987

    The Great Storm of 1987 occurred on the night of 15 October to 16 October 1987, when an unusually strong weather system caused winds to hit much of southern England and northern France....
  • Met Éireann
    Met Éireann

    Met ?ireann is the national meteorology service in Republic of Ireland, part of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government ....
    , the Irish
    Republic of Ireland

    Ireland is an Island country in north-western Europe. The modern Sovereignty state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned by the British on 3 May 1921....
     meteorological service, which separated from the UK Met Office in 1936.
  • North West Shelf Operational Oceanographic System
    North West Shelf Operational Oceanographic System

    The North West Shelf Operational Oceanographic System monitors real-time sea levels for the North Sea area. NOOS is operated by partners from the nine countries bordering the extended North Sea and European North West Shelf; Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and United Kingdom....


External links