I Get Pelters When It Rains

Sep 7 2008 By Graeme Lennox

Scots Childhood Made Matt Into Weatherman So You Want To Work For The Met Office

NOT a day goes by without BBC weatherman Matt Taylor being stopped by strangers and blamed for the wettest summer on record.

At home, on the golf course, in the supermarket, there is no escape from weather-obsessed Brits.

Matt, 32, said: "I can't walk down the street without someone telling me the rain is my fault."

Hundreds of houses were flooded and holidays at home were washed out by the relentless rain. Edinburgh got six weeks' rainfall in two days.

Matt is used to wet weather after growing up in Glasgow but he understands why Brits are feeling cheated by the lack of sunshine. He said: "Weather will always be one of the first talking points so it is a job you can't escape.

"Everyone has an opinion but usually they do it in a jokey manner.

"It's no different at home either. Any time there is a wedding or birthday in the family they will be on the phone asking me what the weather will be." Matt says unpredictable atmospheric conditions in the Atlantic have made forecasting a nightmare.

But Met Office figures show they get it right more often than not.

Around 15 per cent of predictions missed the mark this year but they have just invested £33million in a super-computer for more accurate forecasts.

Matt said: "Little details go awry as the week goes on but generally we are doing better.

"The five-day forecast is as accurate now as the two-day forecast was 10 years ago. The weather is a hugely complex beast but our understanding of it is improving."

Growing up in Glasgow from the age of one, Matt attributes his passion for weather to the west coast of Scotland's ever-changing climate.

He said: "I remember my first thunderstorm and my parents got me a weather station when I was seven. I walked to school in the rain and came home as I started to dry out."

At 14, he swapped Glasgow for Leeds, where he got four A-levels before heading to Cardiff University to do a degree in city and regional planning. He worked for a council in Lincolnshire before realising it wasn't for him and joined the Met Office to train as a weather observer in 1998.

The next three-and-a-half years were spent working at RAF Cranwell, in Lincolnshire where he also improved his maths and physics through the Open University.

This helped to gain him a place on the 12-month forecasting programme at the Met Office College before he landed a job on BBC Radio Wales.

He was presenting the weather forecasts on BBC Breakfast from the Blue Peter garden last week.

He said: "Before broadcasts I speak to the chief forecaster at Met Office HQ in Exeter. I prepare my charts and make sure the story is in my head because everything is ad-libbed.

"Outside broadcasts are still a thrill.

There are people going past who want to be on TV, I don't see the graphics and someone is talking me through them as I go along."

Matt says he was sceptical about climate change but is changing his mind. He said: "We seem to be getting greater extremes. South-east Scotland saw three times the rainfall it would normally expect.

"We saw flooding in Edinburgh, Dundee, Ayrshire, Livingston and Cambuslang but Shetland was one of the sunniest places in the UK."

Predicting the weather for a living does have fringe benefits.

He said: "When I go on holiday I always check which part of the world is expecting good weather.

"I am getting married in the south-west of America next year but knowing my luck it is bound to snow there."