Met Office Responds To Scarlett Moffatt's 30 Percent Chance Of Rain Claim

The Met Office has refuted Scarlett Moffatt's 30 percent chance of rain claim. Watch here:

The 30-year-old TV personality took to TikTok earlier this week to share a revelation about weather apps.

She said: "So all this time that I've like been caught in the rain and people are like, 'Why haven't you brought a jacket?' and stuff like that...

"It's because I've just found out that on the weather app, when it says '30 percent rain', I thought that meant '30 percent chance of rain'.

"It doesn't mean that, it means that 30 percent of your area will be covered in rain."

A lot of Moffatt's 560,000 followers were stunned by this disclosure, but now the Met Office has basically poo-pooed her claim in a bid to 'unblow people's minds'.

TikTok/scarlettmoffatt

In a video posted on TikTok, Met Office weatherman Alex Deakin said: "You may have had your mind blown recently by talk of percentage of rainfall on your weather app.

"We're sorry about that, but on this one, actually, Scarlett is wrong.

"Certainly for the Met Office app, the percentage of rain means the chance of rain at that time for that location.

"So 60 percent means a 60 percent chance of rain, 40 percent chance of dry.

"There are different ways of expressing percentages and in the USA they do use the area one, but generally not here in the UK.

"So if you've got the Met Office app, that's one less thing to worry about; mind unblown."

The Met Office has also broken it down on its website too, just in case that wasn't clear enough.

It states: "In weather forecasting, suppose the Met Office says that the probability of rain tomorrow in your region is 80 percent.

"They aren't saying that it will rain in 80 percent of the land area of your region, and not rain in the other 20 percent. Nor are they saying it will rain for 80 percent of the time.

"What they are saying is there is an 80 percent chance of rain occurring at any one place in the region, such as in your garden."

Perhaps going forwards we should stick to sourcing our weather wisdom from meteorologists, rather than say, the TikTok channels of people who have been on Gogglebox.

Topics: Weather, Interesting, Community, TikTok

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey