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The Met Office says it can now predict weather up to a year in advance thanks to its new £97 million supercomputer.
Scientists from the weather forecaster say they now believe they can predict with increased accuracy what’s known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the weather phenomenon that heavily influences winter in the UK.
The NAO forms due to low pressure over Iceland and high pressure over the Azores, with a big pressure difference increasing westerly winds – meaning cool summers and mild, wet winters. But when the pressure difference is small and winds drop, it means much colder winters.
It is this phenomenon the Met Office now believes it has a better understanding of thanks to its new supercomputer – which was put to the test using a technique called hindcasting, where it was measured on whether it would have been able to predict previous winters.
The data found that over the last 35 years, the computer would have been able to predict the winter weather, a year in advance with 62% accuracy.
The supercomputer is capable of performing more than 16,000 trillion calculations per second as part of its work.
The Met Office has been criticised in the past for inaccurate forecasts, with the most famous example being Michael Fish’s dismissal of the 1987 hurricane that killed 19 people. Now the forecaster says its new system will be able to help with planning for the Government and public services, with the new computer “weighing the dice” in favour of more accurate long term predictions for winter.
