Weatherquest

Jim Bacon is founder and principle of Weatherquest a private company set up to provide farmers and business with short to medium term weather forecasts and weather analysis.  The UK Met office has gradually downgraded the quality of information freely made available to farmers and business. Weatherquest was created to fill this niche.

Weatherquest purchases data from the Met office & the European Centre for Medium Range forecasting to generate their forecasts. They use their own models to convert the information into a form that is easily understood by their customers.

I met with Jim at their office in the University of East Anglia campus at Norwich. Having their office in a university provides them with access to PHD students for research and fresh ideas. As I met with Jim it actually started snowing these huge snow flakes that were 2 to 5cm across. (I didn’t know they could be that big) Jim and his team were even impressed they thought it was probably 6 years since they had seen them that size.

The super Snow Flakes, Unfortunately they don't come out real well in the picture but you get some idea.

I also traveled with Jim to Stoke Ferry where he addressed a group of farmers about weather forecasting and the information he is able to provide them with. He also gave a great demonstration of how the ensemble weather forecasting models work.