I don't believe the forecast predicted the weather to be that bad.
Whilst most people in the know take the met office forecast with a pinch of salt as it can be a little wide of the mark at times, you have to work with what they give you. If you cancelled every time you thought it *might* be foggy then the work would last well in to 2013!
This is the nature of operations: The ops teams at airports & airlines make 100s of decisions every day & you never know or think about the 99 out 100 they get right. Ultimately this was one night when at LGW things went wrong so it's headline news. I am sure they will have a wash up & senior management will become even more risk averse as a result but I wonder how many other occasions they have made a similar call & got it right.