Met Office

Locations

In September 2003 the Met Office moved its headquarters from Bracknell in Berkshire to a purpose-built £80m structure at Exeter Business Park, near junction 29 of the M5 motorway. The new building was officially opened on 21 June 2004 – a few weeks short of the Met Office's 150th anniversary – by Robert May, Baron May of Oxford.

It has a worldwide presence – including a forecasting centre in Aberdeen, and offices in Gibraltar and on the Falklands. Other outposts lodge in establishments such as the MetOffice@Reading (formerly the Joint Centre for Mesoscale Meteorology) at University of Reading in Berkshire, the Joint Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Research (JCHMR) site at Wallingford in Oxfordshire, and there is a Met Office presence at Army and Air Force bases within the UK and abroad (including frontline units in conflict zones). Royal Navy weather forecasts are often provided by naval officers, not Met Office personnel.

Forecasts

Weather forecasting and warnings

The Met Office issues Severe Weather Warnings for the United Kingdom through the National Severe Weather Warning Service (NSWWS). These warn of weather events that may affect transport infrastructure and endanger people's lives. In March 2008, the system was improved and a new stage of warning was introduced, the 'Advisory'.

The Met Office along with Irish counterpart Met Éireann introduced a storm naming system in September 2015 to provide a single authoritative naming system for the storms that affect the UK and Ireland. The first named storm under this system, Abigail was announced on 10 November 2015. In 2019, the Met Office and Met Éireann were joined by Dutch national weather forecasting service the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI).

Weather prediction models

The Unified Model, or UM, is the principal modelling suite used by the Met Office. Released in 1990, it is named as such for its ability to be run over a range of scales in space and time. The UM forms the basis of all operational Numerical Weather Prediction at the Met Office, for both deterministic and ensemble forecasts.

Deterministic forecasts include the UKV model which runs at 1.5 km (0.93-mile) resolution over the UK and 4 km (2.5-mile) in surrounding areas out to a maximum of 120 hours. In addition is global deterministic forecast at 1.0 km (0.62-mile) resolution out to six days, which then provides the boundary conditions for the UKV model.

Ensemble forecasts are also run for both the UK and globally. The UK ensemble (MOGREPS-UK) has 18 members and operates at a 2.2 km (1.4-mile) resolution out to five days, while the global ensemble (MOGREPS-G) runs at 20 km (12-mile) out to seven days. The global model also has 18 members, which then provide interpolated physics perturbations and necessary boundary conditions for the corresponding members of the UK ensemble.

Flood Forecasting Centre

Formed in 2009, the Flood Forecasting Centre (FFC) is a joint venture between the Environment Agency and the Met Office to provide flood risk guidance for England and Wales. The Centre is jointly staffed from both parent organisations and is based in the Operations Centre at the Met Office headquarters in Exeter.

Scottish Flood Forecasting Service

In Scotland this role is performed by the Scottish Flood Forecasting Service, a joint venture between the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Met Office.

Seasonal forecasts

The Met Office makes seasonal and long range forecasts and distributes them to customers and users globally. The Met Office was the first climate and weather forecast provider to be recognised as a Global Producing Centre of long range forecasts by the World Meteorological Organisation and continues to provide forecasts to the WMO for dissemination to other national meteorological services worldwide.

Met Office research has broken new ground in seasonal forecasting for the extratropics and has demonstrated its abilities in its seasonal predictions of the North Atlantic Oscillation and winter climate for Europe and North America.

Supply of forecasts for broadcasting companies

One of the main media companies, ITV produce forecasts for ITV Weather using the Met Office's data and animated weather symbols.

The BBC used to use Met Office forecasts for all of its output, but on 23 August 2015, it was announced that the BBC would be replacing the Met Office with MeteoGroup, a competing provider, as part of the corporation's legal obligation to provide best value for money for the licence fee payers. The BBC still uses some Met Office data for certain forecasts, particularly severe weather warnings and the Shipping Forecast. In July 2025, the BBC announced that it would be partnering with the Met Office again in future.

World Area Forecast Centre

The Met Office is one of only two World Area Forecast Centres or WAFCs, and is referred to as WAFC London. The other WAFC is located in Kansas City, Missouri, and known as WAFC Washington. WAFC data is used daily to safely and economically route aircraft, particularly on long-haul journeys. The data provides details of wind speed and direction, air temperature, cloud type and tops, and other features.

Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre

As part of its aviation forecast operation the Met Office operates the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC). This provides forecasts to the aviation industry of volcanic ash clouds that could enter aircraft flight paths and impact aviation safety. The London VAAC, one of nine worldwide, is responsible for the area covering the British Isles, the north east Atlantic and Iceland. The VAAC were set up by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), an agency of the United Nations, as part of the International Airways Volcano Watch (IAVW). The London VAAC makes use of satellite images, plus seismic, radar and visual observation data from Iceland, the location of all of the active volcanoes in its area of responsibility. The NAME dispersion model developed by the Met Office is used to forecast the movement of the ash clouds 6, 12 and 18 hours from the time of the alert at different flight levels.

Air quality

The Met Office issues air quality forecasts made using NAME, the Met Office's medium-to-long-range atmospheric dispersion model. It was developed as a nuclear accident model following the Chernobyl accident in 1986, but has since evolved into an all-purpose dispersion model capable of predicting the transport, transformation and deposition of a wide class of airborne materials. NAME is used operationally by the Met Office as an emergency response model as well as for routine air quality forecasting. Aerosol dispersion is calculated using the United Kingdom Chemistry and Aerosols model.

The forecast is produced for pollutants and their typical health effects are shown in the following table.

Decadal Predictions

The Met Office coordinates the production and collation of decadal climate prediction from climate centres around the world as part of its responsibilities as World Meteorological Organisation Lead Centre for Annual to Decadal Climate Prediction. These predictions are updated each year and a summary, the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update is published each year.

IPCC

Until 2001 the Met Office hosted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group, chaired by John Houghton, on climate science. In 2001 the working group moved to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

High performance computing

Due to the large amount of computation needed for Numerical Weather Prediction and the Unified model, the Met Office has had some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. In November 1997 the Met Office supercomputer was ranked third in the world.

Customer service

Since 2012 the Met Office Contact Centre (known as the Weather Desk) has been part of Contact Centre Panel's 'Top 50 Companies for Customer Service' programme.

In 2015 the Met Office won awards in the following categories:

• Rated 1st Overall for Combined Channels
• Most Improved Overall for Social Media
• Rated 2nd Overall for Call Service
• Rated 1st Overall for Email Service
• Best in Public Sector
• Best Extra Small Centre

Weather stations

Reports (observations) from weather stations can be automatic (totally machine produced), semi-automatic (part-machine and part manual), or manual. Some stations produce manual observations during business hours and revert to automatic observations outside these times. Many stations feature "present weather" sensors, CCTV, etc. There is also a network of 'upper air' stations, using radiosondes. The six main radiosonde stations in the UK are Camborne, Lerwick, Albemarle, Watnall, Castor Bay and Herstmonceux.

Some stations have limited reporting times, while other report continuously, mainly RAF and Army Air Corps stations where a staffed met office is provided for military operations. The "standard" is a once-hourly reporting schedule, but automatic stations can often be "polled" as required, whilst stations at airfields report twice-hourly, with additional (often frequent in times of bad weather) special reports as necessary to inform airfield authorities of changes to the weather that may affect aviation operations.

Some stations report only CLIMAT data (e.g. maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall totals over a period, etc.) and these are usually recorded at 0900 and 2100 hours daily. Weather reports are often performed by observers not specifically employed by the Met Office, such as Air traffic control staff, coastguards, university staff and so on.

• Eskdalemuir Observatory
• Lerwick Observatory
• Penkridge weather station
• Prestatyn weather station
• Stonyhurst
• Sutton Bonington
• Wye weather station
• RAF Benson
• RAF Brize Norton weather station
• RAF Coningsby
• RAF Cottesmore
• RAF Cranwell weather station
• RAF Kinloss weather station
• RAF Leeming weather station
• RAF Leuchars weather station
• RAF Linton-on-Ouse weather station
• RAF Little Rissington weather station (supported by RAF Brize Norton)
• RAF Lossiemouth weather station
• RAF Lyneham weather station
• RAF Marham weather station
• RAF Northolt weather station 51.55 N 0.417 W
• RAF Odiham weather station
• RAF Shawbury
• RAF Waddington weather station
• Wattisham Flying Station weather station
• RAF Valley
• Middle Wallop Flying Station weather station

Meteorological Research Unit and the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM)

Meteorological Research was carried out at RAE Bedford with instruments being carried by barrage balloons until the RAE facility closed in the 1980s.

The Met Office association with Cardington continued by maintaining a Meteorological Research Unit (MRU) until 2025. This was responsible for conducting research into part of the atmosphere called the boundary layer by using a tethered balloon which was kept in a small portable hangar.

FAAM

The Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM), part of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, is based at Cranfield Airport. It is a collaboration with the Natural Environment Research Council.

The FAAM was established as part of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), itself part of NERC, to provide aircraft measurement for use by UK atmospheric research organisations on worldwide campaigns. The main equipment is a modified BAe 146 type 301 aircraft, registration G-LUXE, owned and operated by BAE Systems on behalf of Directflight Limited.

Areas of application include:

• Radiative transfer studies in clear and cloudy air;
• Tropospheric chemistry measurements;
• Cloud physics and dynamic studies;
• Dynamics of mesoscale weather systems;
• Boundary layer and turbulence studies;
• Remote sensing: verification of ground-based instruments;
• Satellite ground truth: radiometric measurements and winds;
• Satellite instrument test-bed;
• Campaigns in the UK and abroad.

Directors general and chief executives

• Sir William Napier Shaw 1905–1920
• Sir Graham Sutton 1954–1965
• Sir Basil John Mason 1965–1983
• Sir John Houghton 1983–1991
• Julian Hunt 1992–1997
• Peter Ewins 1997–2004
• David Rogers 2004–2005
• Mark Hutchinson 2005–2007
• John Hirst 2007–2014
• Rob Varley 2014–2018
• Penelope Endersby 2018–

Arms