In July 2001 the Met Office opened a new "Centre of Excellence" in
Aberdeen, primarily to provide marine forecasts but it also provides
forecasts for mountain use, winter road conditions and aviation use.

By all accounts I've seen the centre has been successful, both
commercially and in terms of its quality of service. Being a modern
weather forecasting service it is heavily reliant on computing power,
but as we know, computer forecasts don't have it all worked out yet and
a degree of local, specialist knowledge helps in giving a good forecast
on top of what the computer models can do.

So I've been rather dismayed to hear that the Met Office are proposing
to close down the Aberdeen office and move its operations to their main
base in Exeter, putting all their eggs in the supercomputing basket.
Local Weather For Local People? Not any more if the Met Office have
their way.

The closure is subject to consultation, and to try and sway this
consultation an e-petition is in place at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/SCOTMET/petition.html

If you share my view that this closure is a potentially Very Bad Idea,
please take the time to sign it.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/