The Met Office provides a number of services to help authorities prepare for, and respond to, emergencies. The weather can be the cause of an emergency and/or have a major influence on its impact, such as in chemical releases, nuclear incidents, large fires or biological hazards, including Foot and Mouth Disease.

Legislation supporting the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 states that Category 1 responders must have regard to the Met Office's duty to warn the public, and provide information and advice, if an emergency is likely to occur or has taken place.

This duty includes issuing severe weather warnings and plume predictions, together with tidal alerts (provided by the Flood Forecasting Centre). Linked to these services is advice, available from teams of Met Office forecasters, specialist scientists and advisors, on the interpretation and impact of the weather during an emergency. A UK-wide team of Public Weather Service Advisors from the Met Office also assists in the development and maintenance of risk registers, inputs to exercise and planning processes and attends incident command and control centres.

In addition we provide dedicated forecasts and warnings to Category 1 responders. For example in addition to the National Severe Weather Warning Service, we provide the Environment Agency and Scottish Environment Protection Agency with detailed rainfall forecasts and warnings for assessing the risk of flooding.

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  Hazard and risk management

  Hazard and risk management services for emergency responders.

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  CBRN incident management

  Services for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) incident management

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  Flood Forecasting

  Working in partnership to help monitor and prepare for flood risks

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  Animal health

  Advice on the airborne spread of diseases, in conjunction with the Institute for Animal Health

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  Public Weather Service advisors

  Our PWS advisors are responsible for Government Office regions in England and Wales, and Devolved Administrations of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

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  Space weather

  The Met Office is working with partners in the UK and US to expand the UK's space weather forecasting capabilities.