The Met Office launched its most significant scientific upgrade in more than three years on 9 February 2026, and has highlighted Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, as a primary beneficiary of the improved local modelling. Residents of the town should now see much more precise local timing for rain, wind and fog, helping people make better travel choices and prepare their homes for heavy weather.
The upgrade is powered by a £1.2 billion Microsoft Azure cloud-based supercomputing capability, which the Met Office says processes over 50 billion weather observations every day. By moving to higher-resolution local modelling (around a 1 km local grid), forecasts can better resolve how weather moves across the hills and valleys of the High Weald.
Lord Patrick Vallance, Minister of State for Science, Research and Innovation, said the new system ‘has allowed more accurate forecasting, particularly for cloud and fog, two difficult areas for forecasting.’ Improved cloud, fog and precipitation guidance is expected to benefit travellers and transport operators in the Tunbridge Wells area.
For Royal Tunbridge Wells, the updated forecasts should be particularly useful for managing surface-water flood risk and for knowing more precisely when heavy downpours will start and stop. The Met Office says the higher-resolution data will help the borough council and partner agencies make better-informed decisions about deploying gritters and coordinating flood-response measures during periods of heavy weather.
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