[Heatwave Definition?]

The Met Office has its own definitions here for England and Wales (though it doesn't seem they have any for Scotland).

http://www.metoffice.../uk/heathealth/

I think their definitions are pretty reasonable, but I doubt that those temperature levels will actually be reached on Sunday and Monday. My suspicion is that they will probably just fall short in the SE, with maxima of 28 or 29C somewhere around London and a minimum of 17C. Perhaps the MetO are just covering the possibility that temperatures might be a couple of degrees up on what is currently expected- which is by no means unknown, even at just one day ahead.

To be fair, the heat-health watch does say there's a 60% chance of these values being met, highlighting the uncertainty involved.

[Met Office Claims 'barbecue Summer' Prediction Was Right ...]

No, Ewan is to blame-the second time in 3-4 years he has put his foot in it so to speak.

Care to remind us what the previous incident was?

[Met Office Claims 'barbecue Summer' Prediction Was Right ...]

Journalists need no encouragement to mis-report/exaggerate the findings or forecasts of meterologists and climatologists.

...which is exactly what they've done in this article. You'll note there is one quote from someone at the Met seasonal forecasting team which is probably just a statement of fact about the average temp over the summer.

That has been turned into 'defending their prediction' and 'claiming the bbq summer forecast was right'.

The first rule of reading newspapers is assume they've made it up.

[The Jet Stream and Us]

read out guides or try this site

http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/metindex.htm

click on the relevant letter and scroll to jets

Ta for that!

For the record I thought that two of the 'mistakes' where that there was one jet in the northern hemisphere, starting in Africa and spiralling north and that the jet 'ended' over the UK.

[The Jet Stream and Us]

Hi james. I don't know how much you already know, but if you have a reasonable knowledge don't expect to learn anything new. There was a lot of "dead time" for me throughout the programme regarding the history of discovery, but I suppose it would be the most interesting part for the general viewer.

One or 2 glaring inaccuracies too, but you'll spot them as it goes along. Not a wasted hour though by any means.

Dave

Hi Dave - can you tell me what you think the glaring inaccuracies were? I noticed a couple of things which I thought looked a bit shady but I want to be sure I heard them right before getting too grumpy