Sir Graham Sutton was a member of the Atlas Computer Committee from 1961 until 1965.
He was President of the Royal Meteorological Society from 1953-55.
In his 1954 Presidential Address the director of the Meteorological Office, Sir Graham Sutton, delivered an address on The Development of Meteorology as an Exact Science. He expressed the view that automated forecasts of the weather were unlikely in the foreseeable future.
At that time the view in the Meteorological Office was that, while numerical methods had immediate application to dynamical research, their use in practical forecasting was remote. However, evidence began to accumulate that even the rudimentary barotropic model was capable of producing forecasts superior to those produced by conventional manual means.
The Met Office had been doing weather forecast simulations on the Ferranti Mercury at Harwell and also on machines at Manchester. They were one of the main government users of the Chilton Atlas. TV Weather Forecasts started in 1954. The Met Office eventually installed their first computer in 1962.
Sir Graham Sutton retired in 1965.
