July 29, 2009
Met Office admits ‘barbecue summer is off’

The Met Office officials refused to apologise today after admitting that the “barbecue summer” they had predicted was no longer likely.

As rain lashed down on most of Britain, a revised forecast was published suggesting that the weather in August would be changeable with more rain as well as sunny periods.

The revised forecast will come as an embarrassment to the Met Office who published a press release in April detailing news of a hot summer. Ewen McCallum, the chief meteorologist, said the wet summers of 2007 and 2008 were highly unlikely to be repeated.

“This year will be much drier than normal,” he predicted. “Get the BBQ out. Probably with spells of weather with the temperature reaching 30 degrees Celsius.”

Philip Eden, vice president of the Royal Meteorological Society, criticised the Met Office for publicising such an optimistic prediction when they had relatively little evidence of how the summer would unfold.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6731609.ece