Why Met Office gaffes are worse than a joke

Christopher Booker of The Sunday Telegraph
" We are, of course, only too familiar with the way the computer models relied on by our global-warming-besotted Met Office have so consistently in recent years got their seasonal weather forecasts 180 degrees wrong: how its “ barbecue summer” of 2009 was a washout; how its October 2010 forecast that December would be warmer than average preceded the coldest December ever; how its March 2012 prediction that we were in for a dry April was immediately followed by the wettest April on record; and so forth.
What makes this much more than a joke, however, is that the other branches of government are obliged to believe these predictions and to shape their response accordingly. I recently described how the Met Office’s forecast last November – that we were in for a drier than average winter – prompted the Environment Agency to allow flooding of a key part of the Somerset Levels, in the interests of keeping enough water for birds. When this was followed by the wettest January on record, the already flooded area owned by Natural England blocked the draining of so much land further east that disaster was inevitable."