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/ Events

Storms, floods and droughts: predicting and reporting adverse weather

04 March 2013 18:30 - 19:30

David Shukman, Science Editor for BBC News, in conversation with Professor Tim Palmer FRS and Liz Howell, Head of BBC Weather
 

Event details

2012 was one of the “top five wettest years on record”, however the beginning of the year saw a widespread drought across much of the UK.  Join David Shukman, Science Editor for BBC News, and Professor Tim Palmer FRS as they discuss extreme and adverse weather conditions with Liz Howell, Head of BBC Weather. How do these events arise, how they are reported, and how can the latest research improve the forecasting of storms or flooding in the future?

David Shukman previously worked at the BBC as European Correspondent, World Affairs Correspondent and Environment and Science Correspondent.  He has reported from more than 90 countries, made a dozen trips to the Polar regions and is one of the few journalists to have flown on a weather research flight.

Professor Tim Palmer FRS is a Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics at the University of Oxford.  He has pioneered the development of techniques to quantify uncertainty in weather and climate forecasts and was previously Head of the Probability Forecast Division at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts. 

Liz Howell is Head of BBC weather and develops weather forecasting and presentation through the use of new platforms and technologies.  She previously secured the commissioning of 12 highly successful BBC1 documentaries on the 2012 drought.
 

Attending this event

This event is free to attend and open to all.  No tickets are required.  Doors open at 6pm and seats will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. 

A live video will be available on this page when the event starts and a recorded video will be available a few days afterwards.
 
Enquiries: Contact the events team

 

 
 

Organisers

  • Professor Tim Palmer CBE FRS, University of Oxford, UK

    Tim Palmer is a Royal Society Research Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford. Prior to that he was Head of Division at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts where he pioneered the development of ensemble prediction techniques, allowing weather and climate predictions to be expressed in flow-dependent probabilistic terms. Such developments have included the reformulation of sub-grid parametrisations as stochastic rather than deterministic schemes. Over the last 10 years, Tim has been vocal in advocating for much greater dedicated computing capability for climate prediction than is currently available. He has won the top awards of the European and Meteorological Societies, the Dirac Gold Medal of the Institute of Physics, and is a Foreign or Honorary Member of a number of learned societies around the world.

  • Liz Howell, Head of BBC Weather

    Liz graduated with a BSc (hons) degree in Human and Environmental Biology following which she began her career in journalism at the Nottingham Evening Post as a news reporter, feature writer and columnist. After moving to the BBC,  Liz worked on regional TV news programmes in the Midlands, latterly as Output Editor managing all TV news, current affairs and TV documentary programming in the region. During this time Liz ran a major relocation project and led the introduction of revolutionary server based broadcasting technology for all radio and TV operations in the region.

    In 2001 Liz took charge of the BBC’s News Interactive service for England. Working from Pebble Mill, she oversaw many innovative editorial and technical changes to content production. Her strategic role included attendance at all political party conferences, a variety of major Pan BBC contract negotiations and a number of strategic all-BBC editorial projects.

    More recently Liz was asked to develop the BBC’s local weather portfolio and in doing so discovered her passion for the genre. She initiated the commissioning of a multiplatform project Wild Weather (resulting in 12 regional TV documentaries) which was awarded the Royal Met Soc Michael Hunt Award in 2010. Liz recently secured the commissioning of 12 highly successful BBC 1 documentaries on the 2012 drought.

    Delighted to be appointed Head of BBC Weather last year, Liz’s role entails the strategic development of BBC weather output on all platforms – from local through to global and from online to mobile and IPTV. Liz is experienced in multiplatform broadcasting and communicating with audiences and is particularly interested in the delivery of science journalism in broadcasting. She aims to use her wide knowledge further develop BBC Weather forecasting and presentation – maximising the new platforms and technologies available whilst maintaining the trust, loyalty and engagement of all the BBC’s weather audiences.