Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Duncan of Springbank on 14 January (HL222), why the Public Weather Service Customer Group's targets each year for the accuracy of forecasts do not include rainfall.

The Met Office measures the accuracy of its rainfall forecasts by comparing forecast rainfall accumulation against rainfall estimates from radar and actual rainfall measurements from gauges. The Met Office reports on the accuracy of rainfall forecasts to the Public Weather Service Customer Group (PWSCG). Since 2017, the PWSCG has included verification of the forecast weather symbol as part of this formal forecast accuracy target. This measures how accurate the forecast was in terms of whether it was sunny, cloudy or raining. Since its introduction, this metric has shown that the accuracy of the forecast weather symbol has improved at all forecast time scales.