Outlook brightens for Met Office

It may be of little comfort to those who have seen their picnics ruined, cricket matches cancelled and holidays washed out, but British weather forecasts are now apparently the best in the world.

The once reviled forecasters at the Met Office are getting their predictions right more often and are providing more and more detailed information about the weather, the organisation's annual report proudly announced today.

According to its own figures, weather reports issued by the Met Office have improved by seven per cent in the past year. Eighty-six per cent of its forecasts are accurate.

That means that in any given week, only one forecast is likely to be wrong. Cricket club captains and village fete organisers might be forgiven for thinking that is always the one for Saturday afternoon. In line with other public organisations, the weather experts now have performance targets to worry about, but they have risen to the challenge and attained five out of six goals for the past year.

The Met Office successfully forecast the storms of January and February but it blames others for not taking the predictions seriously enough.

Chief executive Peter Ewins said: "We made an unprecedented improvement in the Numerical Weather Prediction Index - a measure of our forecasting accuracy - firmly establishing ourselves as the best in the world."