London 2012 appoint weather supplier...and it's not Barbados

MORE good news from London 2012 - as they inch ever closer to achieving their revised and increased £700 million sponsorship target.

BAD WEATHER: London 2012 have appointed the Met Office to provide weather information during the Games (Getty Images)

A press release arrived today titled: "Outlook looks bright as London 2012 confirm weather supplier".

Unfortunately, Paul Deighton and his crack commercial team have not done a deal with Barbados or the Maldives.

Instead they've signed up the Met Office to provide expertise, forecasts and data in the build up to and during the Games.

London officials have already said they won't be employing the same tactics used by Beijing, in a bid to guarantee the one thing they can't plan for - the unpredictability of the British summer.

Last year, Chinese meteorologists fired a barrage 1,110 rockets into rainclouds to make sure the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony was precipitation-free.

These silver iodide missiles were designed to disperse rain-laden clouds, although some of raised eyebrows over the environmental damage they caused.

London mayor Boris Johnson has claimed he has no worries about the fact only 40 per-cent of the 80,000 seater Olympic Stadium will be under cover.

"It is not raining in London 94 per cent of the time, we have exactly the same climatic conditions as Paris," he said, earlier this year

"Rumours of our wetness are greatly exaggerated and I think the Olympic Stadium will be absolutely fantastic."

Back in 1948, when London last staged the Olympics, the opening ceremony was staged on the hottest day since 1911.

After that it rained almost every day - the worst weather in Olympic history.

The story was similar for the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

At the opening ceremony they performed a quirky little dance with umbrellas and it duly poured non-stop - the closing was staged in a virtual monsoon.

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