Weathermen admitted yesterday, 20 years after they failed to forecast the Great Storm of 1987, that a similarly devastating event could still arrive undetected.

The news comes amid concerns over climate change, which forecasters expect will lead to more storms hitting Britain with greater intensity.

Forecasting techniques have improved greatly since October 16, 1987, when hurricane-force winds swept across southern England. Although computers are much more powerful, weather patterns better understood and warning systems far more sophisticated than they were in 1987, weather researchers say that further improvements are required.

Ewen McCallum, the Met Office’s chief meteorologist, said that it was “highly likely” that the next such storm would be accurately forecast, but admitted that it was possible that weathermen could get it wrong again.

“I’d like to think, should a great storm or major depression occur again, the risk of it happening would be picked up and communicated to the public,” he said. “It’s highly likely we would predict it, but we can’t be complacent.”

Modelling techniques available in 1987 identified stormy weather approaching two or three days before the storm hit. In the 24 hours before it struck, however, the storm seemed likely to come up the Channel and miss Britain.

It was this belief that led Michael Fish to declare to viewers: “Earlier on today apparently a woman rang the BBC and said she’d heard there was a hurricane on the way. Well if you are watching, don’t worry, there isn’t.”

The storm that followed was the worst in nearly 300 years, killing 18 people and causing about £1 billion in damage but it is increasingly being regarded as the first of several likely to sweep across Britain.

Having been described at the time as a once-in-200-years weather event, it was matched less than three years later by the Burns Day Storm in January 1990. That storm, which hit in the early hours of January 25, affected a much larger swathe of the country than the Great Storm. Parts of Wales and southern England recorded even stronger winds and 47 people were killed.

Mr McCallum said that only “flat-Earthers” refused to believe that the world was in the grip of climate change and that global warming would mean more stormy weather.

Matt Huddlestone, a climate scientist with the Met Office, expects storms like that of October 1987 to become increasingly familiar as global warming intensifies.

He said: “Climate change is unequivocally impacting on our environment. We’ve already seen an increase in extreme storms over the UK in the last 50 years. It’s expected that there will be continual changes into the future. There will be stronger pressure gradients driving more storms in our direction, with stronger winds.”

In the aftermath of the 1987 storm the Met Office set up its National Severe Weather Warning Service to help to make emergency services and the public aware of potentially dangerous weather.

Analysis of the factors that contributed to the devastating winds, which were recorded at up to 122mph, gave meteorologists a better understanding of the storm.

They have run a series of retrospective forecasts and identified a “sting jet” – a sudden downward surge of air at high speed in the tail of a storm system – as the main factor in making the 1987 event so deadly.

Meteorologists at the Met Office are convinced that with additional money to purchase a new super-computer they will be able vastly to improve their success in forecasting weather and climate changes.

Brian Golding, head of forecasting research, said that the technology, which would cost hundreds of millions of pounds, would save lives and pay back the investment ten times over.

Storm force

£1.5 billion total loss

19 number of people killed

1.2 million in insurance claims

3,000 schools closed in London and the South East

Source: Times database