Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

The Met Office has lost its BBC weather forecasting contract, it has confirmed.

Former BBC Weather presenter Bill Giles has said he is “absolutely shattered” by the Beeb dumping the Met Office after 93 years for a potentially foreign firm.

Weather experts expect torrential downpours this afternoon with the weather turning thundery.

We’re guessing the atmosphere between the BBC and the Met Office is positively icy right now.

A Met Office spokesman said the two areas will be hit hardest by rain as the front bringing it stalls because of a lack of wind.

Reports this month said staff at the Met Office had received bonuses totaling £20.8m over the past five years for correctly predicting the weather. Because this leaves a window of opportunity, however narrow, for Broadcasting House to see sense and outsource this service not to the best weather forecaster but to the forecaster of the best weather.

The first phase of the Met Office supercomputer project is scheduled for completion in September 2016.

Britain is set to be battered by rain and the Met Office has issued warnings about localized flooding and travel disruption.

“Ranked No 1 in the world for forecast accuracy, people trust our forecasts and warnings”.

Bosses at the BBC say they have a duty to license fee payers to guarantee the best value for money across all program areas and would assess the strongest bids that came forward. “There are lots of ways to access these both now and in the future — via the Met Office app, website, and video forecasts, as well as through television and other digital news providers”, Noyes said.

The BBC announced last week that it was considering proposals from weather services based in the Netherlands and New Zealand.

However, she said Metra had already worked for the BBC “for a long time” providing graphics for its weather bulletins.