Thanks so much everyone for the questions and the engagement. It's been great fun. Let us know if you'd like us to do more of these, bye for now and always look up! 😁  

Aw making me blush! Aidan and I like to sport some colourful creations on our broadcasts. Its a balance between getting people's attention but not wanting them to detract from the forecast, of course. I used to love wearing a tie on the BBC and used to host Choose a Tie Tuesday on Twitter, where you could pick which one I'd wear. To answer the question a lot of mine I get from Paul Smith... when they're in the sale 😂   

Wow I think this might be the earliest I've been asked that question, usually it's November! 😂It's just way too early to say anything about Hallowe'en let alone Christmas, but yes El Nino loads the dice slightly towards a milder and wetter festive season. El Nino increases the chances of the first part of winter being more dominated by low pressure systems and therefore wind and rain (and mild) is more likely, but it only 'increases the chances' it does mean anything is definite and even in a mild, wet and windy December cold spells can still happen. 

Ah snap I think Gwedolyn is my fave of this year's batch, Olaf is also a goodie. Fionnuala and Wubbo were my favourite last year - sadly (?) neither got used.

Thank you - we love doing the Deep Dives, its so great to get positive feedback on them and I think they are the key to your question too. We need to educate the public on probability for sure and I agree I think the lack of communication about probability plays a part in the perception of accuracy. 

I've been doing weather broadcasts for almost 30 years and probabilities have been around longer than that, we've never quite got the message across. For too long it's been accepted that the public don't understand probability but I dont think that's really true.   

Longer form videos like the Deep Dive or evergreen videos can help with explanations so making more of these is good but we need to get the message across to more people not just those interested in meteorology. 

We have to get more presenters talking about probability or 'chance of' the Met Office and BBC new partnership could help with that.

The use of ensembles is going to get more and more mainstream in the coming years and that will hopefully help too. 

I'd like to see some level of confidence attached to forecasts so people know if the confidence is low they should check back closer to the time.

Easy one... snow. A slight change in many variables, eg temperature, humidity, elevation, intensity, wind speed or direction can be the difference between a damp grey day or a blanket of white over the landscape. Its quite rare.... and getting rarer too. Plus it gets sooooooo much media and public interest everyone wants it to snow... until it does 😂 

As per a previous response - I'm in the office about 8am - looking at the graphics and prepping some of the early broadcasts. We have a catch up with all the presenters about who is doing what that day, just before 9am. Most important part of the day is the chief's brief where the Met Office Chief Meteorologist goes through the latest forecast and updates. Whilst the presenters are all trained meteorologists it's the chief and the deputy chief that do all the hard work the hard core meteorology if you like.

After this brief we'll do a few recordings for our own channels or our commercial customers. Mid morning we have the editorial meeting where the team discuss what content we are making that day for all our social channels, creating a spreadsheet in the process. That sets the tone for the day we make our content according to that spreadsheet and record our other broadcasts during the day. When we are not in the studio we are planning evergreen videos or writing scripts.

The Met Office is definitely a 24/365 operation. We have meteorologists on shift on Christmas day keeping the UK safe. But in the content team we don't work shifts, if it's stormy, snowy or we have a heatwave we'll be in very early but most of the time we start about 8am. The morning forecasts are actually recorded the evening before, this is something we would never have done even 20 years ago but the improvement in forecasts means we can nowadays. 

I'm in the office about 8am - looking at the graphics and prepping some of the early broadcasts. We have a catch up with all the presenters about who is doing what that day, just before 9am. Most important part of the day is the chief's brief where the Met Office Chief Meteorologist goes through the latest forecast and updates. Whilst the presenters are all trained meteorologists it's the chief and the deputy chief that do all the hard work the hard core meteorology if you like.

After this brief we'll do a few recordings for our own channels or our commercial customers. Mid morning we have the editorial meeting where the team discuss what content we are making that day for all our social channels, creating a spreadsheet in the process. That sets the tone for the day we make our content according to that spreadsheet and record our other broadcasts during the day. When we are not in the studio we are planning evergreen videos or writing scripts.

My advice would be to take in any and all weather forecasts - live and breath meteorology, look at all forecasts and charts you can get your hands on. Start doing your own forecasts, think about how you would communicate the forecast and the uncertainties. 

Climate change is a very serious challenge and personally something I am worried about. 

The important thing is that our future isn’t simply predetermined, yes some temperature rises are already 'baked in' because of what we have already done but we still have a say in what the future holds. 

Reducing emissions can limit future warming, while adaptation can make us more resilient to changes that are already happening or can’t now be avoided. A big part of the Met Office’s work is providing the climate information that helps governments, businesses and others understand those risks and make better-informed decisions about the future. We are here to provide the best science so that everyone can make the best calls and make the most informed plans based on that world leading science.

There's been a few broadcast bloopers that stick in the memory... the time I said a naughty word by accident... the time I was left hanging like a statue by the director for 20 seconds, both live on BBC One  - Google them if you want a laugh 😂  

Massive meteorological errors are, thankfully, very few and far between, we have some of the best meteorologists on the planet working here and providing the details for our forecast, but it can still happen that you get the emphasis wrong. I remember talking about a bright sunny day in an early morning recording for BBC London recorded at the end of a nightshift and driving home from broadcasting house through thick drizzle and it still being drizzly when I woke up at 1pm. 

The St Judes storm also was also interesting. The night before I was sent to Brighton with a news reporter to talk about the storm the next day as it came through, it was to be a big outside broadcast live into the BBC News Channel. The journalist was highly sceptical and when we woke there wasn't much happening and I was worried the whole thing would be a damp squib and we'd get flack for wasting resource on the OB but, although a little late, the storm finally produced some significant disruption and even the news presenter acknowledged in the end it was a good call.

Yea it's frustrating for sure, some headlines can pose challenges with trust in the weather forecast, and we need to maintain that trust for when it matters and we see severe weather.

Our press office work really hard to build relationships with news outlets and individual journalists educating them on the realities of weather forecasting. If stories are wildly off the mark we'll make calls and get them taken down or corrected. 

One of my personal favorite things to do is call out inaccurate or sensationalist articles and make some social media content to raise awareness of nonsense weather reporting, to which we get some fantastic feedback. In these we also encourage the public to tag us in any crazy weather stories they see. 

It's about educating the public as much as educating the journalists, come and see what we're talking about first, if there is snow or a storm coming we'll be talking about it, if we're not its probably bobbins.

Fondest memory is probably the 'Beast from the east' snow event in 2018. I love snow but it is such a hard thing to forecast and there was soooo much media and public interest, but our top meteorologists here got it pretty much spot on with red and amber warnings in the right areas. 

Being able to go out and 'play' aka film in the snow when you know the forecast has gone well was sensational. Met Office HQ is a beautiful building in the sunshine but looked incredible under 15cm of snow and we had such a great time and then we got freezing rain - wow I'd never experienced it before and it was so thick and we were able to make such great content with it. 

As a weather presenter I've been lucky to experience some cool things within the media, broadcasting from Wimbledon and the Olympics being big highlights, holding the FA cup at Wembley too but my favourite was probably going on Bake Off... back in the day!     

'Always look up' is a favourite motto of mine, especially when I go into schools for talks etc. There's always something to see! I like taking photos of clouds and then using the pen drawing tools to embellish and to add eyes and tusks to cloud 'elephants' for example. I especially love going through clouds on airplanes seeing their structure as they whizz by. I love showing my kids the different types of clouds and explaining how they're forming.... to which I get the eye rolls! I love a Cb too... but from a distance, when you can see a decent anvil or overshooting top.   

The way we generate the data for site forecasts has changed and improved a lot over the past few years, in line with advances in technology. Formerly we were only able to apply modifications to wind and temperature values at weather observation sites, meaning that even nearby locations could indicate different values. Now we can improve the quality for all sites based on weather station observations. 

Extremes are always going to be challenging for models (and forecasters), as by definition we have less historical information to go on, but with temperatures in particular extremes are always the main 'story' and generate huge interest from the media and public alike. This past summer I think our forecasts for the highest highs were actually fairly good but we'll be analysing the performance of the models and look to make improvements based on what we experienced.

The way we generate the data for site forecasts has changed and improved a lot over the past few years, in line with advances in technology. Formerly we were only able to apply modifications to wind and temperature values at weather observation sites, meaning that even nearby locations could indicate different values. Now we can improve the quality for all sites based on weather station observations. 

Extremes are always going to be challenging for models (and forecasters), as by definition we have less historical information to go on, but with temperatures in particular extremes are always the main 'story' and generate huge interest from the media and public alike. This past summer I think our forecasts for the highest highs were actually fairly good but we'll be analysing the performance of the models and look to make improvements based on what we experienced.

Thank you 😊 

The Met Office is definitely a 24/365 operation. We have meteorologists on shift on Christmas day keeping the UK safe. But in the content team we don't work shifts, if it's stormy, snowy or we have a heatwave we'll be in very early but most of the time we start about 8am. The morning forecasts are actually recorded the evening before, this is something we would never have done even 20 years ago but the improvement in forecasts means we can nowadays. All our forecasts are pre recorded, not live, so they're always going to be out of date as soon as you publish them, that's the nature of the beast. If the forecast does change overnight, in particular if warnings are issued, we can 'pull' or remove the forecast from YouTube etc and play some graphics instead.         

It's complicated! First you have to measure the weather, take in millions of observations of pressure, wind, temperature - build a picture of what the weather is doing now. Feed that into one of the most powerful computers on the planet. Run the computer with weather models we have built that move the atmosphere on in time and create a picture of the future atmosphere to show where it's raining etc in 3 hours, 6 hours, 24 hours 5 days 10 days ahead. Then use humans (forecasters) to analyse this 'future' and tweak and adjust to give the most likley outcomes..... does that make sense?  

5 - 28C sunshine with a sea breeze  

4 - Walking through upslope stratus, light drizzle, 15C 

3 - Calm sunny day 5C with 25cm lying snow

2 - Autumnal foggy morning clearing to blue skies and colourful tress 

1 - Thundersnow

For site forecasts on the app and website, we make a lot of use of ensemble data, that's when we tweak the starting conditions and run the model many times rather than just one 'deterministic' model. For the longer range we use data from the ECMWF ensemble system.  

Chaos theory dictates there'll always be a limit to accuracy. We can (and do) run higher resolution models to 100m grid size over smaller areas and this can be useful for say forecasting fog at individual airports, but you're right, the main limiting factor is computing power. As AI forecasting models develop it'll be interesting to see where these go in the coming years.      

When we're trying to determine how likely it is to rain at a specific time and place, we get a better indication by looking at multiple ensemble members than we can by just looking at data from the UKV. However, using data from a single model (eg UKV) is a clearer way of telling the weather story on a map, so that is why you can get differences.

I don't really use the app as much as most people. I use the radar and the forecast rain more than anything, as long as they're on the app I'm happy, when the new one launched the forecast rain was clunkier to use but it quickly got changed. The Met Office app is one of the few that has us presenters giving a forecast - I think that human touch is really useful, provides context and expressions of uncertainty. On the new app you have to search a bit harder to find us, which being an egotistical presenter I obviously don't like as much 😂 

It's our job at the Met Office to help people 'Stay safe and thrive' we need to stick to the science of meteorology and climatology and deliver the forecasts with authority. The over hyped headlines are a constant battle for our comms team, especially our press office. We try and work with the news outlets so they have a better understanding of the science but they still conjure sensational headlines. We have more licence now to be more forthright in our communications and often do take downs or corrections of the over hyped stories. Having said all that I do feel we should all be concerned about climate change and feel my personal climate anxiety has increased a lot of recent years. Our summers are getting hotter and we need to adapt to the changes that are happening.

Nice question! Any extremes of weather make my job super busy.... and I love that!!! So it's hard to pick a favourite, I'd hate to just have one to talk about all year, one of the many fab things about this job is there's always something different just around the corner. +35C in the southeast is getting way more common than -15C in Scotland so perhaps the novelty of the -15 would be 'better'. Personally I'd like to live with neither, I'm from northern England and that's where the best weather in the UK is IMO... a halfway house.

Luke warm shower before going to bed. Fans - you can get some really good quieter ones now too. Seeing the heat was coming ahead meant I could buy them before they sold out 😂   

I definitely don't feel they're getting less accurate but incremental increases in accuracy have naturally got smaller. The advent of super computers really improved forecasts consistently from the 1970's through to the 2000's but that curve has flattened off. 

Then when app's came along suddenly everyone had access to a site specific forecast for 10 days ahead! Which wasn't realistic. Microclimate's are very real and the models can't resolve individual hills and valleys so that will always 'mix things' up a bit. I always recommend everyone becoming there own mini meteorologist - use all the tools available - the radar the satellite etc and get the know the forecast for where you are and understand the weaknesses in the apps you use. Come up with your own forecasts - score yourself.... see if you can beat the apps!!     

Great question, I was a slow developer when it comes to weather. Many of my colleagues have been 'into clouds' since they were 3 years old but I didn't get that interested until I was at Uni. I studied Astrophysics and learnt a bit about atmospheres on other heavenly bodies before studying ours. I did an option on climate change that got me really interested. When I graduated I wanted to do something involving my course but also learn something new so applied to the Met Office to be a forecaster. Landing a job in presented was (as most jobs in broadcasting) a stroke of luck with many things coming together (long story). If you are keen on weather I always say it's Maths, Physics and Computer Science that are the best subjects to study. Geography is helpful but far from essential (I don't have Geography A - level). I remember the 1987 storm pretty well and always watched the BBC presenters in the 80's with interest, I always found Ian McCaskill's character on Spitting Image pretty funny so maybe it was that... I got to meet him many years later an he was a lovely chap.