Met Office Cannot Provide Evidence For “More Intense Storms” Claim
By Paul Homewood
You will recall this BBC News report the day after Storm Isha last month:
.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-68036507/page/2
.
I sent the Met Office an FOI, asking for evidence supporting this claim.
They have now replied, saying they have none.
OUCH!!!!
.
.
The rest of their reply waffles on about model projections of stronger storms in future, which of course has no relevance to the claim at all. They even sent a link to this report to clarify the background:
.
.
So Claire Nasir clearly lied when she claimed that storms were more intense. Her exact words according to the Met Office were:
.
.
She should be reprimanded, and the Met Office should publish a full correction.
It is little wonder that so many have little confidence in the Met Office anymore.
Even Richard Betts would have difficulty defending this latest disgraceful episode!
UPDATE
I have now emailed this complaint to the Met Office:
I would like to draw your attention to a false claim made by one of your senior meteorologists recently.
On 22nd January, the day after Storm Isha, your senior meteorologist, Claire Nasir stated on BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast that “when we see these storms they are more intense and that’s down to climate change”.
However, following a FOI asking for evidence of this claim, you have admitted that you have no such evidence. Your reply also referred to your own recent reports, which also confirm there has been no trend in maximum wind speeds since 1969.
Your State of the UK Climate 2022 report goes further, emphasising that several storms during the 1980s and 90s were much more severe than anything seen in the last ten years.
The public has been seriously misled by this untrue claim.
I request that you publish a full retraction and provide the public with the correct information.
Would you please acknowledge receipt of this complaint and confirm that it is being dealt with.
NOTES
Your FOI reference is :
IMS0186263
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“Even Richard Betts would have difficulty defending this latest disgraceful episode!”
Are you absolutely sure about that
Ha, ha, ha – we are of the same mind as that’s exactly what I thought when I read that. I bet he would try.
Well done
RA
<
div>
Sent from my iPad
<
div dir=”ltr”>
<
blockquote type=”cite”>
As part of a government department I would have thought the FOI Act applied to them as opposed to the EIR unless they are regulations made under the Act. In any case, you can’t produce what you don’t have under the FOIA and I find it odd that they label it a ‘refusal to disclose information’. I recall Westminster had a case where somebody wanted the grid references for all the motorcycle parking places within the City. The information was not held so could not be supplied. The enquirer did not like this so took it to the Information Commissioner as they believed WCC must know where the parking places are and so have this information. Yes they did know where they were but not via grid references which is what the person wanted for creating an app.
I assume Nasir is either ignorant or knows full well her claim is wrong. I suspect the latter thanks to Paul’s request and her undoubted commitment to the climate scare narrative. She didn’t count on someone asking difficult questions.
Nasir is a total eco-activist and so fits right in at what the MetOrifice has become these days.
If only they were as careful about scientific facts as they are about being woke! I mean, they did not put a ‘Mr’ before Paul’s name, presumably in case he be the sort of person who would love to be able to report them to the police for ‘transgender hate’ or something.
It’s the standard answer. “How dare you not believe us!”
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.”
The only thing missing is their ability to lock you up for disagreeing with Big Brother.
YET!!
More intense alarmism to prop up their climate fantasies, that’s all.
Very well done, Paul.
Is the next step to present that information to the BBC and request that they issue a clarification, since a clearly misleading claim went unchallenged there?
Mark, if you have not experienced complaining to the BBC before, you will not believe how exhausting it can be. I currently have 3 complaints being “handled” and every one concerns factual error – not bias nor interpretation straight factual error. First they wait 3/4 weeks. Then you get an apology saying they are very busy but will reply soon. Then they still don’t reply, claim to be working on it but advise you of your entitlement to escalate the claim to Ofcom. Then you get some intern give you a complete nonsense reply to a question you didn’t even ask. So you then have to escalate to the next level, rinse and repeat. In the end you rarely get a correction to even the most ridiculous errors.
I have personally had a reply in the past from the BBC that the term “hydrolysis” would be understood by the lay person to have the same meaning as “electrolysis”. I kid you not. Apparently you can derive hydrogen from water by watering it down according to the BBC. The mere fact their statement was complete bollocks simply doesn’t matter.
That Paul has managed to get errors admitted to in the past is quite miraculous.
I have several in the stage you describe, and one in appeal. I haven’t gone as far as Ofcom yet.
The usual first response is usually a description of what the article is about and where the information came from. The response to the second submission of a complaint is basically experts said this.
They often give the source of the story with the invitation to contact them yourself. Paul’s already done that!
The end result is the BBC is never wrong
RaySanders and glenartney, I take my hats off to both of you for going through the grim process. I confess I haven’t yet done so (to my shame – there’s plenty to complain about, after all).
This is now the standard operating procedure. Models forecast something, a weather event happens and the MO and BbC claim a single weather event is proof the models are correct. That the models forecast trends, not single events, is ignored.
Claire Nasir: Seems to me she is a TV personality (sometimes called a “weather girl”) and opportunistic self-promoter that shills for the MET and her other interests. Her scientific meteorological credentials are thin.
I read multiple items each week wherein the writer has simply accepted the axiom of AGW/CO2 in the same sense that water is wet or a freshly baked potato is hot. This lead to many silly statements.
If Claire Nasir is employed by the MET office, she should not be so cavalier. {looking down on other people — as if sitting on a very tall horse}
master’s degree in Applied Marine Sciences.
After university studies, Nasir joined the Met Office, training to become a qualified weather forecaster.
Request for information that is not held
I read that as “We have no proof to support our comments. We don’t even have any evidence to support our comments.”
Am I missing the true meaning of the words?
Lying is addictive. Sooner or later it becomes a way of life.
When intelligent and thoughtful people are inveigled into misspeak by their employers as part of their expectations in employment you know things have gone well off the rails. This is the exact environment that every tyranny that has ever stalked the earth needed to provide the oxygen of its existence to maintain its deception. When the tyranny sees the little people as disposable, mere tools in this narrative, we have a clear picture of from where such controls emerge, what sort of authority insists on it being maintained; this house of cards is so inter-reliant that it is virtually impossible to blow over. Prestige, positions and hierarchies are at risk and the only way to maintain this contrivance is to misspeak even more.
“Met Office Cannot Provide Evidence For “More Intense Storms” Claim”
Do tell…..I wonder why that is?????
There is clearly a coordinated and constant effort involving all of the media and once august institutions to promote climate fear. Lying is quite acceptable as there are no consequences for the liars. Question is, who is doing the coordinating and how did we reach a point where all of our media and institutions have been captured by zealots spouting climate lies among the other lies which they promote?
Who is pulling the strings?