The Met Office

It's raining

It's pouring
He went to bed and bumped his head
And he couldn't get up in the morning. 

In the middle of our summer we are used to weather which has no respect  for the date and today the heavens opened and remains open as I write.
The Met Office who had a contract with, amongst others, the BBC have the unenviable job of predicting the weather over this tiny landmass which can, in one day have what a country as large as South Africa or Australia can have in a year. The geographic position we are in, on the western side effected by the Gulf Stream and, on the eastern side, by the enormous land mass of Europe especially the frozen wastes of Russia.
The Met Office is an institution which has been a part of our life. The butt of many a complaint when we got the barbecue out and it rained cats and dogs but somehow part of our institutional DNA.
Not any more, the bean counters at the BBC are ditching The Met Office for some as yet unnamed foreign outfit. The contract had come up for review and the rules insisted that it went out for tender. Money is the criteria since the Government have laid down the gauntlet on funding the BBC, as they inch their way to finding an alternative to the annual licence fee. Advertising and the option followed by Sky, of levying a program content fee, is on the cards, although denied by the Minister.
The business of offering a forecast of the weather requires a huge investment in computer power as the information flows in from sensors and weather stations all over the globe. The information is continually changing and the variation between what happens point to point combine to deliver a prognostic, nothing more but which is often taken for gospel by the avid weather listener.
No move is made without a consultation as to what the weather holds but as we have said it is only a prognostic tool, much like the clouds and the colour of the sky, birds flying high and cows seeking a corner of the field.
I presume the foreign guys who get the job (probably Chinese) have the computer power but can they smell the dung ?