Met Office to broadcast weather forecasts on FACEBOOK after break up with the BBC

The Met Office is building a virtual forecaster which will send weather predictions to Brits using Facebook Messenger, The Sun Online has learned.

In the coming months, the Met Office is expected to begin sending predictions directly into people's inboxes using a "bot" designed to interact with people in real time.

Up until now, the much-loved national weather service was famous for its televised forecasts on the BBC.

But the corporation recently parted ways with the Met Office after almost a century and controversially handed the weather forecasting contract to a firm called MeteoGroup.

Tom Shapland, head of media and content partnership at the Met Office, told The Sun Online the Facebook bot scheme was part of a wider drive to show Brits weather forecasts in a brand new way.

He said: "We need to answer the right questions about the weather, because people always want to know what they can do or the weekend or what to to wear to work.

"We will be aiming to use a variety of channels to answer British people's questions and offer a reliable, accurate but also personalised forecast."

Facebook bots are designed to mimic humans and interact with users by sending or responding to written messages.

Pizza lovers can already use a Dominos bot to order a pizza using Facebook Messenger and other firms are expected to offer similar services using the facility.

Tom added; "We can foresee using bots to have direct relationships with users through Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

"We will be looking at opportunities to have that personalised and intelligent relationship with our audience."

The Met Office is also upgrading its app and will soon offer beefed up maps which show real time weather information.

It has also bought a £97million supercomputer which will be used to give even more accurate predictions about the nation's famously volatile climate.