CorpComms Magazine

Phil Hall, Managing director, PHA Media

The difficulty organisations like the Met Office have is that they are always slow to react. They will debate issues, discuss the pros and cons rather than give their comms director the opportunity to get on the front foot and be proactive.

The newspapers and broadcast media will go on the attack and by the time the corporate affairs team have moved into gear, the news agenda has moved on.

I would advise them not to be so cautious but to be prepared to take risks and accept that sometimes there may not be perfect PR, but more often than not the media appreciate the fact that you are at least trying to work with them.

In December 2003 the Met Office were forecasting the following day maximum temperatures with 82 per cent accuracy and minimum temperatures with 77 per cent accuracy. Today those figures are 87 per cent and 85 per cent. The long-range forecasts have improved by 26 per cent in nine years.

Now that is a good positive story for them, but I suspect a lot of media organisations would turn a deaf ear to it because, after all, their readers and viewers love moaning about the weather forecasters getting it wrong.

The only solution is to make the presentation of it unique. Why not get a well-known forecaster out on Question Time? They are, after all, well educated, bright people. Why not show how the forecasts work these days - can TV cameras come into the centre and watch the sophisticated satellite systems at work? They work on oceanic and atmospheric readings, but how?

They then need to roll out a programme for schools so that the adults of tomorrow are familiar with how the system works and just how accurate it really is.

Only then will the clouds that surround the Met Office show they have a silver lining.

Sarah Hall, Managing director, Sarah Hall Associates

It has to be recognised that there is an inherent conflict between the Met Office and the media - the latter deals in absolutes and big headlines, while the nature of forecasting is that it is not an exact science but based on probabilities.

This is exactly why the Met Office should have foreseen the threat to its reputation and reinforced the fact that predictions are just that. For example, did you know that long range forecasting, being experimental, is only 65 per cent accurate - a point that was never made amid all the headlines of the 'scorcher' to come?

The Met Office did get some things right, clarifying its initial forecast and providing supporting evidence for points made in the April press release (the one which stated that we were 'odds on for a barbeque summer') in response to media criticism - but achieving widespread pick up appears to have been too big a challenge. Issuing letters to print media from chief executive John Hirst, clarifying misconceptions and stating that the Met Office is the most accurate operational weather forecaster in the world, according to figures from the World Meteorological Organisation, was good practice but this key message now needs to be hammered home at every available opportunity.

The Met Office needs to:

Actively manage expectation by driving people to the website where there is always the most up-to-date information

Strengthen relationships with media, in particular broadcast to reach the greatest number of people. The BBC is arguably the easiest target due to its remit

Utilise social media to best advantage

Drip feed stories that explain what it actually does to dispel misperceptions and build trust. This, and goodwill, is what will get it through any rocky periods

Recognise its shortcomings. By apologising, it could have created a fresh news angle that would have allowed it to set the record straight

Harness the public's cynicism about the media - and British weather itself.

Most importantly, it needs to forecast threats to its reputation and prepare accordingly!

Warwick Partington, Managing director, Media Training Masterclasses

As I sit on a hilltop on the Hebridean Island of Colonsay, watching the Atlantic's waves crashing onto the rocks below during a gale, I recall the promise of a 'barbecue summer' predicted by the Met Office earlier in the year.

To date, with the UK harvest well behind schedule due to torrential rain in July and early August, the Met Office's reputation is being called into question by the media to whom they gave the promise. But are they right to do so?

Over the last 20 years, for those of us lucky enough to have explored Iceland or climbed in the Himalayas, we have seen with our own eyes, substantial glaciers retreating or even disappearing at an alarming rate. We know that global warming is an indisputable fact, not a political debating point. In such situations, forecasting weather patterns is unpredictable.

The forecast is based upon is theoretical modelling, rather than data from actual records. Potentially, in a rapidly warming environment, this is inherently flawed. For example, science has yet to determine what factors affect exactly where the jet stream will blow each year and it is a fundamental driver of UK weather. Hence, it is hardly surprising that the Met Office got this year's long-range forecast wrong!

So should we give the Met Office's headline predictions much credence? Probably not! They have fallen into the trap of feeding the media with headline grabbing simplistic press releases, rather than scientific analysis. Their release on 30 April had as its top line The coming summer is 'odds on for a barbecue summer', according to long-range forecasts.

As my old radio news editor used to say, 'Partington! Before reading any weather forecast, look out of the window and see what is really happening!' The Met Office should do the same and avoid overly simplistic predictions. They only have themselves to blame for their red faces this summer.

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