UPDATE: Forecast humor on steroids, here
You can’t make up FAIL like this. First this story in the BBC Today:
Now let’s have a look at the official Met Office forecast for April, issued on March 23rd, 2012:
Met Office 3-month Outlook
Period: April – June 2012 Issue date: 23.03.12
SUMMARY – PRECIPITATION:
The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier than average conditions for April-May-June as a whole, and also slightly favours April being the driest of the 3 months. With this forecast, the water resources situation in southern, eastern and central England is likely to deteriorate further during the April-May-June period. The probability that UK precipitation for April-May-June will fall into the driest of our five categories is 20-25% whilst the probability that it will fall into the wettest of our five categories is 10-15% (the 197-2000 climatological probability for each of these categories is 20%).
CONTEXT:
As a legacy of dry weather over many months water resources in much
of southern, eastern and central England remain at very low levels.
Winter rainfall in these areas has typically been about 70% of average,
whilst observations and current forecasts suggest that the final totals for
March will be below average here too. The Environment Agency advises
that, given the current state of soils and groundwater levels in these
areas, drought impacts in the coming months are virtually inevitable.
Read the entire forecast here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/i/A3-layout-precip-AMJ.pdf
Saved copy here: Met_Office_A3-layout-precip-AMJ
Obviously, the power sucking supercomputer they recently put online needs to be bigger.
It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.
GIGO me thinks. This isn’t the first time this has happened:
Met Office admits they botched snow warning
And then there’s the BBQ summer fiasco, which prompted replacement of the seasonal forecasts with the shorter term one you see above:
Met Office ends season forecasts – no more “BBQ summers”
Maybe they should stick to DART (Digital Advanced Reckoning Technology) which can do the job of making forecasts equally well, using less power, less space, and less money: 
h/t to Charles the Moderator and Adrian Kerton over at CA in comments.
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My daughter in England has mentioned the copious rain (my iPhone tells me it’s raining there now, as a matter of fact), I’ll have to make sure she sees this so she can roll her eyes too. Heh.
Precious. Just precious.
Kurt in Switzerland
“Obviously, the power sucking supercomputer they recently put online needs to be bigger.”
I doubt it is the computer’s ability that is the problem. GIGO, SSDD.
At least they get the wrong answer faster with the newer computers. Thats good, right?
As soon as the met office announced a drought, we knew what would happen.Same thing last summer.Anything past three days out, your better off with a pine cone!
They’ve been Flannery’ed.
LOL ! The British Met Office must have taken its cues from the Australian BoM and Tim Flannery.
Back to basic for these nincompoops, no supercomputers just an abacus to keep them busy. You have to have a loot of time on your hands to come up with the rubbish that they do.
Must be very embarrassing for the MO section that is trying to engage at Bishop Hill, Dr Betts et al, to have to deal with such guff.
Last I read the British were in for water rationing what the heck happened?
I understand that Tim Flannery has been in Britain recently. Perhaps this is another manifestation of the “Flannery Effect”: http://www.ozclimatesense.com/2012/03/flannery-rainmaker.html.
The long range forecast from netweather said April was likely to have above average rainfall this year.
JustMEinT Musings says: “Last I read the British were in for water rationing what the heck happened?”
Given the UK Warmist oligarchy, somehow rationing will still be deemed necessary, if only to keep the proles in their place. This will all turn out to be “the wrong kind of rain.”
“…drought impacts in the coming months are virtually inevitable.”
Well, of course. Computers can only make virtual forecasts…
If they just reversed their long term predictions they’d be right every time, however they always go for the warmer scenario (2007 was another classic where they warned of a drought coming and it rained all Summer). Basically colder conditions bring dryer Winters and wetter Summers as the influence is from the north not the west (as normal).
I need permission to use my hosepipe to clear the floodwater
A friend of mine has an old Commodore 64 stuffed away back in a closet somewhere that he would possibly be willing to sell to the Met Office for a reasonable price. Probably doesn’t use quite as much power as their whopper of a teraflopper. Probably wouldn’t flop as badly in its prognostications either.
Anyone know Met Office’s purchasing contact info?
/snark
The Australian BOM uses the software from the UK Met Office.
In fairness to the MO…oh, to hell with it…
IDIOTS
LOL, the drought that will never end here in Australia is so bad I cannot get my lawn mowed for all the rainwater laying about.
Honestly, these days if the BOM says something, I tend to say, “its almost garanteed it will be the exact opposite to what they say”. Perfect example was the floods we recently had here, everything was lining up almost exactly the same as 74, so I told my wife, we needed to prepare for the possiblility of floods, the BOM on the other hand only figured it out as the dams overflowed and the flood happened.
but at the end of the day, they do give me a good laugh, they are my version of the clowns and the circus.
Richard says:
I understand that Tim Flannery has been in Britain recently. Perhaps this is another manifestation of the “Flannery Effect”:
Its much simpler that that: The two conditions for rain are to have a hosepipe ban at the start of the cricket season. Works every time:-)
Oh, and its still raining in Sussex as I type this.
Dear oh dear.
http://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/posts/151691/
Olympics and Wimbledon round the corner? Guaranteed rain!
I bet they still get their bonuses! This mob should be privatised, we would see how long they continue to operate then. By the way, bet you can’t guess what the weather is doing in Sheffield this morning.
I rarely watch BBC TV news, and a but short but fruitless wait for some heartening news that David “Murdoch” Cameron was actually going to do something other than mash his gums, confirmed I’m justified. One of the studio “reporters” informed an assumed gullible audience that basking sharks have been drawn to UK waters in larger-than-usual numbers because of the “warm spring we’ve had”. Wait, what? WHAT???
Minutes later I see a reporter in gumboots standing alone on a bridge, above brown foaming waters informing that same gullible public that the flooding in the West Country was severe because “rain runs off dry hard ground”. Wait, what? WHAT??/ After the wettest April in living memory? Encompassing the West Country also? He also blamed the still rising waters on rainfall over the previous 24 hours, when it at least that for the run-off to accumulate in tributaries and reach the lower, flatter area he was standing in. Wait, what? WHAT???
It had stopped raining hours earlier, and he said the worst might come over the next 12-24 hours, accurate for once, and in fact contradicting what he’d just said. He’d called the flooding an “unfolding disaster”, whose dreadful consequences included that some horses had needed rescuing from a flooded field, and that some motorists had difficulty getting to work. Declare a National Emergency! Does the Beeb think we’re all stupid, or do they employ just anyone these days? Don’t wait, just exclaim WHAT???
As stated above I think this might be the Flannery Effect. The Gore Effect is well known so is only fair that another leading crackpot have an effect named after him.
If both of them turn up together I imagine you get a snowy blizzard. If Ove Guldberg turns up as well you get a snowy blizzard which results in unprecedented coral growth. If Robyn Williams (Australian ABC Science Show) comes along you can expect a wet snowy coral blizzard with falling sea levels etc…
It always works. In the two weeks since the drought order came in where I live, we’ve had 7inches of the stuff.