Weather or not

Interesting little piece from the Met Office. The guardians of Climate Change tell us that the recent forecasts of Arctic winters ^TM in the UK are nothing to do with them. "A sense of reason" they call the piece.

Now, they're probably right. Albeit their claim that icepocalypse isn't round the corner is more hedged around with caveats than a software contract. But I'm intrigued that in trying to defend their forecast (which they seem to deny was a forecast, but defend anyway) last year, they claim "Last year there was some confusion between our longer-range outlook which provided good advice over the whole winter - as January and February were relatively mild...." 


Which is interesting. As the Met Office's report for January 2011 tells us that the temperatures that month were "somewhat below" the 30-year average for 1971-2000. So "relatively mild" means in comparison to December's wildness - not in comparison to a normal January.


So come on Met Office. Put a sock in it. We know you were wrong. And now you've admitted that the best you can forecast about the coming winter is that it's going to be vague - we're all going to wait for the weather to be really specific.