Here is part of a great blog from Paul Homewood concerning the Met Office’s Private Briefing Document For The Environment Agency....below is his section on the location of the Jet Stream, regular readers of Piers Corbyn would know the answer to this issue....
Following the wet summer in the UK last year, the Met Office provided the Environment Agency with a briefing document, giving an overview of the weather. This was discussed at the September Board Meeting of the Environment Agency, which Met Office officials attended.
As far as I know, this document, which I obtained through FOI, has never entered the public domain. It is brutally honest in admitting how little the Met’s scientists understand about what affects our climate, and, in particular, what caused the unusual weather last year. This is in stark contrast to many of the hyped up claims, made in public statements in the recent past by, among others, the Met Office themselves.
The full document is reproduced below, but there are four particular areas I wish to focus on.
Those of us caught in downpours in our shorts or left peeling soggy sausages off the barbecue could probably have told them all along.
The Met Office finally admitted yesterday that the forecasts it gave of ‘dry’ weather last year were ‘not helpful’.
But the organisation’s chief scientist still insisted two-thirds of its long-term forecasts are ‘very helpful’ – without specifying quite what that means for the other third.
In its official guidance to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Met Office said that last April was likely to be ‘drier than usual’.
We’ve discovered that we own an island. But dreams of independence and tax-havenry evaporate when we try to picnic there on Easter Sunday: we watch it submerge slowly beneath the incoming tide. It’s a barnacle-encrusted rock, about the size of a tennis court, just off the beach at Cambois, north of Blyth, which for some reason ended up belonging to my ancestor rather than the Crown. Now there’s a plan for a subsidy-fired biomass power station nearby that will burn wood (and money) while pretending to save the planet. The outlet pipes will go under our rock and we are due modest compensation. As usual, it’s us landowners who benefit from renewable energy while working people bear the cost: up the coast are the chimneys of the country’s largest aluminium smelter — killed, along with hundreds of jobs, by the government’s unilateral carbon-floor price in force from this week.
There were dead puffins on the beach, as there have been all along the east coast. This cold spring has hit them hard. Some puffin colonies have been doing badly in recent years, after booming in the 1990s, but contrary to the predictions of global warming, it’s not the more southerly colonies that have suffered most. The same is true of guillemots, kittiwakes and sandwich terns: northern colonies are declining.
It’s not just here that the cold has been relentless. Germany’s average temperature for March was below zero. Norwegian farmers cannot plant vegetables because the ground’s frozen three feet down. In America snow fell as far south as Oklahoma last week. It’s horrible for farmers. But in past centuries, bad weather like that of the past 12 months would kill. In the 1690s, two million French people starved because of bad harvests. I’ve never understood why people argue that globalisation makes for a more fragile system: the opposite is the case. Harvest failures can be regional, but never global, so world trade ensures that we have the insurance policy of access to somebody else’s bumper harvest.
I normally post some of the Nathan Rao Weather News articles from the Daily Express, lets see how he gets on with his April 2013 Weather forecast with the aid of the Met Office, maybe Piers has met his match:)
THIS time last month we were talking about March being colder than average.
Four weeks later, after a battering from Siberian winds and snow, we are still shivering in bitter winds with frost still on the ground most mornings.
Last month turned out to be the second coldest March on record, with temperatures well-below average for the time of year and parts of the country left under snow.
Easter was bitterly cold for much of Britain, with bookies forced to pay out after flakes of snow fell over London over the weekend.
With a low of -12.5C recorded in Braemar, Scotland, over the weekend, it is safe now to say it has been the coldest Easter on record.
Provisional full-month Met Office figures for March confirm it has been an exceptionally cold month, with a UK mean temperature of 2.2 °C.
This is 3.3 °C below the 1981-2010 long-term average for the month, and ranks this March as joint second coldest (with 1947) in our records dating back to 1910. Only March 1962 was colder, with a record-breaking month mean temperature of 1.9 °C.
In an unusual turn of events, this March was also colder than the preceding winter months of December (3.8 °C), January (3.3 °C) and February (2.8 °C). This last happened in 1975.
Looking at individual countries, the mean temperature for England for March was 2.6 °C – making it the second coldest on record, with only 1962 being colder (2.3 °C). In Wales, the mean temperature was 2.4 °C which also ranks it as the second coldest recorded – with only 1962 registering a lower temperature (2.1 °C). Scotland saw a mean temperature of 1.3 °C, which is joint fifth alongside 1916 and 1958. The coldest March on record for Scotland was set in 1947 (0.2 °C). For Northern Ireland, this March saw a mean temperature of 2.8 °C, which is joint second alongside 1919, 1937, and 1962. The record was set in 1947 (2.5 °C).
The Met Office has admitted issuing advice to government that was "not helpful" during last year's remarkable switch in weather patterns.
Between March and April 2012, the UK experienced an extraordinary shift from high pressure and drought to low pressure and downpours.
But the Met Office said the forecast for average rainfall "slightly" favoured drier than average conditions.
The three-month forecast is said to be experimental.
It is sent to contingency planners but has been withheld from the public since the Met Office was pilloried for its "barbecue summer" forecast in 2009.
From 1 to 26 March the UK mean temperature was 2.5 °C, which is three degrees below the long term average. This also makes it joint 4th coldest on record in the UK........
The cold weather is expected to continue through the Easter weekend and into April.
Looking at individual countries, March 2013 is likely to be the 4th coldest on record for England, joint third coldest for Wales, joint 8th coldest for Scotland and 6th coldest for Northern Ireland.
Clearly March has been extremely cold and snowy and joins 2006, 2001, 1995, 1987, 1979, 1970 and 1962 as years when March saw some significant snowfall. Once all the figures are in, it's possible that the December to March period for 2012/13 will be comparable with 2010/11, 2009/10 or winters in the mid-1980s.
Throughout the cold spell which started at the end of January Met Office forecasts and warnings have given accurate and timely advice to the public, emergency services and business across the UK.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on 12 March, Catherine Brookes of the Highways Agency, said about significant snowfall: "We knew this was coming. It was forecast, we had plans in place and we followed them. All of our resources were available and we have been gritting continually."
Temperatures are unlikely to recover to normal averages for the time of year until the latter part of next month, the Met Office has suggested in its 30-day forecast.
Freezing temperatures look set to bring misery to thousands of people for the rest of the week and throughout Easter weekend as the dangerous wintry weather shows no immediate signs of abating.
The Met Office has issued a cold weather alert for much of England, with a 100 per cent probability of severe cold weather and icy conditions until Friday.
Its outlook for Sunday until April 9 predicts cold, dry weather, with a few light snow flurries and widespread frost and icy patches overnight, with temperatures unlikely to return to normal levels for this time of year until the latter part of April.
The above Tweet from the Met Office today may have been innocent, in as much they just wanted to show that March 2011 had the warmest Easter Temperature, but my gut feel at the time was that it was an attempt to show the world warming. We will never know for sure, but the fact remains there is no sign of any warming at the moment
There is a 90% probability of severe cold weather and icy conditions between 1500 on Sunday and 0800 on Thursday in parts of England. This weather could increase the health risks to vulnerable patients and disrupt the delivery of services. Please refer to the national Cold Weather Plan and your Trust's emergency plan for appropriate preventive action.
This is an extension and update to the existing level 3. Cold easterly winds will persist through the coming week with bitterly cold conditions. With lying snow and partial snow melt during the day icy conditions are likely. Today's light snow in central areas will die away, but a few mainly light wintry flurries will persist near the east coast through the coming week.
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This March is set to be the coldest since 1962 in the UK in the national record dating back to 1910, according to provisional Met Office statistics.
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