Met Office gives White Christmas update as 'arctic blast' forecast

ok.co.uk:

The Met Office has responded to stories about an impending Arctic Blast snowbomb in the UK amid uncertainty over forecasts.The weather experts say they start receiving queries about snow on December 25 as early as October, but note that mid-December still falls within the realm of doubt for such precise forecasts.

A Met Office spokesperson weighed in on why these snowy forecasts capture headlines, stating: "These excitable headlines occur all year round.

Literally, come rain, shine or snow. But they often use one-off, individual forecasting model runs to suggest what weather 'might' be on the way." However, they emphasised that single model runs fall short of providing a dependable forecast, elaborating: "However, the truth is that single model runs are not reliable enough to work out a detailed forecast, they are just one part of the wide range of information needed to provide a full forecast picture." Devon Live reports that Met Office Meteorologist Aidan McGivern further clarified best practices, remarking: "What meteorologists actually do, is rather than cherry pick one computer model run for more than two weeks' time, the computer models are run lots and lots of times and then we can pick out areas where they are agreeing and areas where they are disagreeing.Then we can talk about likely weather patterns and less-likely weather patterns, common themes and so on." The forecaster emphasised the limitations of long-range predictions, clarifying: "Yes, our long-range forecast now covers the festive period but, it isn't a detailed forecast like our five-day forecasts." They added: "The long-range forecast gives a broad description of the weather that is likely to be affecting the UK.