AT the October meeting of Crediton Probus Club our President, Richard Adams asked John Marshall to say grace just before we sat down to an excellent meal supplied by an emergency team of caterers. After we had this Richard proposed the loyal toast and Don Nicholson gave the month’s quotation.

After the draw (won by John Clarke), our guest speaker, Bob Lunnon, was introduced by Keith Beetlestone.

Bob had worked in the Met Office from 1984 until his fairly recent retirement. He told us that the Met Office was established in the mid 1800’s as a service to mariners under Vice Admiral Sir Robert Fitzroy.

Until its move to Exeter in 2004, the Met Office was sited at Bracknell in Berkshire and it was there that Bob was appointed to the department producing the shipping forecast (he stayed there for two years).

One of the favourite occupations of the people who drafted the forecasts was to introduce to it words and phrases that didn’t trip naturally off the tongue in an attempt to make the BBC announcer stumble in delivering them.

Most of the rest of Bob’s time with the Met Office was spent in dealing with forecasting relating to aviation. The Met Office is one of two World Area Forecast Centres (the other one is in Kansas).

The centre was established in 1982 when Britain was involved in the Falklands conflict. Prior to this the Met Office only dealt with the Northern hemisphere, but the globalisation of air traffic (passenger and trade) together with the defence need to supply forecasts for the South Atlantic made it necessary to provide a global service.

In 1982 funding for the Met Office came from the MOD, it has subsequently been received from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

Forecasting the twists and turns of the various jet streams of the globe and calculating optimum routes for aircraft through and around them is a major part of the Met Office’s current remit.

Cumulonimbus (thunder producing) clouds together with the pattern, direction and speed of the jet streams are shown on Significant Weather Forecasts (SIGWX). Thus far there has never been an accident due to a wrong upper-air level forecast.

Other very important forecasts for aviation include global digital forecasts of CAT – Clear Air Turbulence – weather events with protracted turbulence.

Volcanic activity and the subsequent drift of ash and other material in the upper atmosphere is obviously of great concern to the aviation industry. A number of VAAC’s – Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres – supply data to the Met Office which synthesises it and distributes the necessary forecasts.

Between 1979 and 1980 Bob worked in the European Space Agency on the Metoeosat Project and following his arrival in Exeter in 2003 (his wife and son, who was completing ‘A’ levels, moved later) was involved – from 2005 – with the EU funded project Flysafe.

Robin Langhorne thanked Bob for his fascinating talk and Richard closed the meeting by proposing the toast “til the next time”.

Keith Barker