THERE'S SPIN AND THERE'S MET. OFFICE SPIN

Wigan Council are not happy with the Met Office.  Council Officers are complaining that they were left in the dark by their weather forecast contractor about impending icy conditions and therefore did not grit roads in the borough.  As a result public transport services were affected and a number of road accidents occurred.

‘This year we awarded the contract to the Met Office. The council officer correctly acted in not treating the roads network from the information he had been provided with.
“When the weather starts to change from the forecast, we would expect a Met Office forecaster to ring us up and inform us of the pending changes, but this did not happen.”

It seems knowing what weather can be expected but not telling people is getting to be a bit of a habit for the Met Office.  As a result senior managers from the Met Office have been asked to attend the next Greater Manchester winter maintenance group meeting to discuss their level of service.
Despite this adverse publicity the department is happily spinning that no complaints have been received, all is well and they will be attending the meeting as they ‘are keen to work with our customers and make sure they receive accurate and good advice from us’.  Somehow I doubt this story will appear on this Met Office webpage.

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/01/nice-one_27.html

http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/theres-spin-and-theres-met-office-spin/

Morg
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