A change in status but it’s business as usual for the Met Office

Knowing what the weather will be like helps many of us make decisions that are often prosaic but sometimes vital when we are faced with extremes like last year’s heatwave. I talk to Simon Brown to find out about the Met Office’s role in resilience and find out it’s not just about providing a forecast.

Simon Brown is Services Director at the Met Office where he is accountable for forecasting services and the national weather observation network. He comes from a long career in the water industry and is a geologist by training. I spoke to Simon shortly after the change in the law that means the Met Office is now a Cat 2 Responder under the Civil Contingencies Act.

“We are an end-to-end service. We spend a lot of time involved in planning and preparing for the impacts of weather. The role of our civil contingency team has always been to work with local resilience forums and the government. We often carry out and exercises testing our response to things like heatwaves, storms and cold weather. We attend multi agency events and we’ve always been embedded with the Cat 1 and Cat 2 Responders, but until now we haven’t been embedded in law.”

Founded in 1854, the Met Office is the national meteorological service for the UK. It has 2000 staff spread across 60 locations and is a trading fund of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. 90 per cent of its money comes from the Government with the rest from commercial services. It is mostly known for the provision of the Public Weather Service, this includes the National Severe Weather Warning Service that is freely available to every citizen in the UK.

Advising at local and national levels

With 22 Met Office Civil Contingency Advisers dotted around the UK, each one works with groups of local resilience forums in their area, getting involved in with Tactical Coordination Groups as well as at the strategic level.

The Civil Contingency Advisers are embedded in teams for major events like the G7 summit held in Cornwall in 2021. During last summer’s heatwave, Met Office advisors worked within the confines of the Cabinet Office Briefing Room known as COBR providing national level strategic advice to the Government.

Informing risk assessment

The National Resilience Framework was published in December 2022, and I ask Simon how it impacts the Met Office.

“Regardless of being made a Cat 2 Responder, we have always been at the heart of decision making; what the change in status has done is highlighted our role within government around shared risk and understanding of weather events.”

He goes on to set out the four main weather risks that are part of the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA): wind/storms, heat, cold and space weather. He is keen to point out that weather has indirect impacts on other risks on the NSRA.

“Climate change is a chronic risk and reaches across a range of the risks we have as a country. The Met Office role in that can only be enhanced now that we are a Cat 2 responder. Importantly, it places a duty on other Cat 1 and Cat 2 responders to make sure they are accessing our forecast information and climate data via our services.”

Technology behind the weather

We talk about how the Met Office uses technology and the challenges that come from sharing data across different organisations. Simon refers to the National Situation Centre, “By gathering situational awareness about what is going on across the country, we are trying to understand the multitudinal effect of the various risks to provide insight for the Government. We were part of the pilot and have been able to integrate our data into the Centre. That’s been a huge positive for us.”

He says that this exposure increased the Met Office’s influence on how non-weather-based risks are assessed, bringing in a weather-based view to them. For example, the Covid vaccine roll out was a huge logistical operation, and weather affects how people access services. The Met Office used an overlay of its data to help inform policy and decision making to improve services to the public at this challenging time.

Use of spatial data

I wonder if there are strong relationships between Met Office staff and other responders based on spatial mapping expertise. Simon says they use a system called Hazard Manager that allows responders to get granular information on weather impacts, including plume forecasts which will show which way the wind might carry smoke for example.

The Met Office also uploads information of varying complexity to Resilience Direct including spatial data but Simon cautions that the file sizes can be ‘absolutely massive’ so they are thoughtful about what they provide.

“The raw data can be look quite straightforward, but you need highly trained experts with the skills to draw out the right information when it comes to weather forecasting. The weather model output isn’t the final answer; the building blocks behind the forecast and the interpretation of that model is where we really add value.”

A whole of society approach

The National Resilience Framework sets out three core principles, one of which is to take a whole of society approach and Simon is keen for his staff to do the same.

“Our role is not just to provide a weather forecast. I expect my staff to take account of situational awareness and risks. They need to be sensitive to what’s happening within society, and the Framework gives a solid basis to our approach. I have meteorologists who know how to communicate with the public. We must put weather into the language that people understand so that they can make sensible informed decisions in their every day lives.”

Simon emphasises the need to work with partners to get the messages out to the whole of society, including vulnerable communities. If the whole of society approach is to be joined up, then the agencies need to be as well. “This helps us get involved in the conversation and ensures weather is on the agenda when organisations are planning, preparing and responding.”

We end this fascinating discussion on a high, as Simon offers me my own personal weather forecast. And he was right.