The Met Office is a shamefully mismanaged organisation that gives science a bad name. The presentation of weather information is also deeply flawed. The BBC presenters who attempt to convey the UK forecast (not qualified meteorologists), first waste time telling you what the weather was like a few hours ago (in case you've just risen from a coma), and then tell you what it's like now. The astonishing thing is that they get this second bit so wrong so frequently. A cursory look out of your window is much more reliable. I have heard Tomasz Schafernaker declare that "the thick cloud across the whole of the South East will remain for the rest of the day and into the evening", at the very moment I was applying sun block because of the brilliant sunshine and cloudless skies. This is not an unusual error for these kinds of things happen with high frequency. Even way back in 2012, when rainfall was the heaviest in living memory, when Carol Kirkwood was asked about the weather that was causing mass flooding and forcing people out of their homes, she responded "Oh, no. It's about right for this time of year". As for the BBC weather app - during a weekend of storm force winds with trees coming down and high-sided vehicles being blown off the motorways, the app declared that there was actually light winds and light cloud. It also stated that it had been 'updated' a few moments ago’ throughout the weekend even though it clearly hadn’t. This despite news reports showing the chaotic destruction sweeping across the country. I checked that the app was actually responding. it was. I deleted it and re-installed it but it still said the same thing. I can only assume that maintaining and updating the data that is fed to the app is considered a rubbish job so those responsible just don't bother doing it. After all, if you just type in 'light cloud' and walk away for a nice weekend down the pub then the app will be right most of the time anyway. This wasn’t an isolated incident. The BBC weather app is just awful on a regular basis.So what's the answer? As the sheer, overwhelming number of bad reviews here shows, this is a poor service that is not fit for purpose and that those responsible, whether it be in government or elsewhere simply don't care. There isn't the political will to address such a fundamentally broken entity. I stopped paying attention to the Met Office and the attendant TV and radio reports a while back. I bought a barometer, learned how to read it and use a little common sense. Believe me, my stress levels have dropped and the bitter little disappointments delivered in daily instalments by the Met Office and the BBC have pretty much disappeared. However, I feel for those people for whom accurate weather information is crucial for their livelihood. I actually wrote to the head of the Met Office Rob Varley four years ago to politely ask why the service was encountering such difficulty in accurately forecasting the weather. Unsurprisingly, I got no reply.
