U.K.’s Winter Forecast Is a Hot Topic as Energy Shortages Loom

LONDON—The national weather service here is expected to make a big call on Monday: Will Britain’s winter be mild and wet, or cold and dry? The U.K. Meteorological Office is poised to update its seasonal winter outlook. The routine report is typically fodder for weather junkies and ski resorts. Amid Europe’s energy crisis, the release is attracting a much wider audience. A cold, dry and windless winter could drain the continent’s natural-gas storage, which European governments scrambled to build up in recent months in an attempt to wean themselves from Russian energy. “It’s going to be scrutinized,” said Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, which is unrelated to the Met Office. The report’s potential economic impact “makes it more challenging than normal circumstances,” she said. Weather has become a key factor in Europe’s pivot from its reliance on Russian gas after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In turn, Moscow has largely shut off the spigot. European officials say they have socked away enough gas to avoid rationing and blackouts—unless the winter is really bad. The U.K. is more vulnerable than some other European countries. It has relatively little stored gas, and over the past decade has come to rely heavily on wind power. A period of still weather can reduce wind power and jack up demand for gas. The monthly update expected on Monday would be among the earliest seasonal outlooks from a handful of well-regarded agencies that analysts hope can give the world a better feel for how bad the winter might get. “Once we’re in November we start to get a clearer view of the regime we’re shifting into,” said Luke Boxall, director at The Weather Perspective, a U.K.-based consulting firm, who is a former Bank of America Corp. meteorologist. Guy Smith, head of gas trading at Swedish utility Vattenfall, said a team of five weather analysts will pore over the U.K. forecast, along with outlooks from two other European agencies expected in November. While the report is focused on Britain, it has implications for the continent as a whole, in part because of the agency’s expertise in modeling something called the North Atlantic Oscillation, important for forecasting weather continentwide. All that has raised the reputational stakes for the British weather agency, called simply the Met Office here. One of the world’s pre-eminent weather services, the 168-year-old institution has long catered to blustery Britain’s national obsession over weather. “Despite the heightened interest at the moment in what the weather has in store for us this winter, this is very much business as usual for the Met Office,” said Will Lang, whose title at the agency is head of situational awareness. Mr. Lang said the agency’s “importance and relevance means that the times when we have been perceived to get things wrong have a long legacy.” The Met Office has racked up a decent record so far this year. Its most recent longrange forecast, issued in early October, correctly foresaw mild weather this month.