Barbeque Summer?

[jesusbuiltmycar]

bbc

bbc said:

You will need a brolly on holiday in the UK in August - the Met Office is issuing a revised forecast for more unsettled weather well into the month.

It is a far cry from the "barbecue summer" it predicted back in April.

The news will raise questions about the Met Office's ability to make reliable seasonal forecasts.

So was the "bbq summer" just spin to help Winky and his chums out?

No doubt the revised forecast will be blamed on climate change - just like a BBQ summer would of been!

[jimothy]

Remember boys and girls, then the met office are telling you we're all going to die thanks to the weather they've predicted for 50 years time unless we pay more tax. it must be true, as they can easily predict weather in the future with great accuracy.

Oh...

[V8mate]

Weather forecasters should be closed down. They are less often correct and more often blatantly lying than the bl00dy government!

I don't think you'd do any worse than simply scratching your chin and deciding what the weather might be yourself.

[ludo]

very accurate weather forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/

[Digga]

As my handle suggests, a large chunk of my income is derrived from holes being excavated in the ground and, if it's really pissing down, this sort of work cannot happen. (This is only partly because the soft, workshy UK builders don't like getting wet - there are practical considerations; trenches flood so you cannot see to put in or work on pipes or cables and the integrity of excavations is compromised, so there's a danger of trenches collapsing, etc. etc.)

So I pay great attention to the weather accross the whole of the UK and also get a reasonable idea from customers and I reckon that summers are getting wetter and wetter, to the point that I don't personally bank on taking my 'summer holiday' (I hate airports, so I do tend to holiday in the UK) anytime from the end of June to mid September. This is a 'climate change' - all the bozos that assume climate change, man-made, or otherwise would automatically result in a "warming" take note - and I also think this will be coupled to colder winters if the warmer, prevailing SW Atlantic weather systems stall.

[jmorgan]

ludo said:

very accurate weather forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/

Got that bit right, I am sat right under it.

Recently spent a loverly wet soaked week in the UK. Sod it for next year, orfski where the sun is, if the government want me to spend my money here, making forecasts up has just proven disastrous.

[ludo]

jmorgan said:

ludo said:

very accurate weather forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/

Got that bit right, I am sat right under it.

Recently spent a loverly wet soaked week in the UK. Sod it for next year, orfski where the sun is, if the government want me to spend my money here, making forecasts up has just proven disastrous.

just part of the british climate, I have yet to see good evidence to suggest that there has been a huge change in rainfall, not had any more cricket matches rained off than usual anyway

[jesusbuiltmycar]

ludo said:

very accurate weather forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/

Am I missing something?

That is not really a forecast - just observation of current weather...

simlar to:
www.xceather.co.uk
www.pooleharbourweather.com
www.weather-file.co.uk

Windguru and theyr provide far more accurate short term forecasts that the met, if you pay...

[ludo]

jesusbuiltmycar said:

ludo said:

very accurate weather forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/

Am I missing something?

That is not really a forecast - just observation of current weather...

sorry, I should have included a It is good for forecasting in a sense, before setting off for a cricket match I look to see how the reanfall has been evolving over the last few hours, which usually gives a better forecast than the official one as the official one is usually prepared much further in advance.

[Eric Mc]

1 to 5 day wetaher forecasting is generally accurate.

Medium to long range forecasting isn't.

The former is based on looking at current weather systems and predicting in what way they will move and develop over the next few days.

The latter is pure guesswork based on a study of statistical evidence from past years. Because of this it is highly unreliable and evidence that trying to predict anything based on past behaviour is almost worthless.

[Digga]

ludo said:

jmorgan said:

ludo said:

very accurate weather forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/

Got that bit right, I am sat right under it.

Recently spent a loverly wet soaked week in the UK. Sod it for next year, orfski where the sun is, if the government want me to spend my money here, making forecasts up has just proven disastrous.

just part of the british climate, I have yet to see good evidence to suggest that there has been a huge change in rainfall, not had any more cricket matches rained off than usual anyway

True to a point. Certainly from my years [mis]spent sprinting and hillclimbing, I always felt the events in March and April had a better chance of being dry.

However, recent summers and espcially 2007 have seen the ground absolutely waterlogged across huge swathes of the UK. I'm not saying this is [green lentilist panic]climate change[/green lentilist panic], but it is a slight alteration in what I'd grown to expect of a UK summer.

[Jalopnik]

We should scrap the Met Office (they can't even get it right for Exeter where they're based!) and get the yanks to do our weather forecasting; theirs seems to be decades ahead of ours.

Instead of vague terms that our TV weather monkeys give (dumbed down to let the chavs have half a chance of understanding) they deal in percentage chances of certain things like rain, hail etc - gives you a better idea of what to expect.

PS: it's hissing down in Taunton...

[ludo]

Digga said:

ludo said:

jmorgan said:

ludo said:

very accurate weather forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/

Got that bit right, I am sat right under it.

Recently spent a loverly wet soaked week in the UK. Sod it for next year, orfski where the sun is, if the government want me to spend my money here, making forecasts up has just proven disastrous.

just part of the british climate, I have yet to see good evidence to suggest that there has been a huge change in rainfall, not had any more cricket matches rained off than usual anyway

True to a point. Certainly from my years [mis]spent sprinting and hillclimbing, I always felt the events in March and April had a better chance of being dry.

However, recent summers and espcially 2007 have seen the ground absolutely waterlogged across huge swathes of the UK. I'm not saying this is [green lentilist panic]climate change[/green lentilist panic], but it is a slight alteration in what I'd grown to expect of a UK summer.

personally I think it is just natural variability, some summers are wetter than others, and purely by chance there will occassionally be a few of them in a row, but it isn't really enough of a timespan to reliably detect a trend.

[ludo]

Guam said:

Look its not climate its weather it works like this If its cold and Pissing down its Weather (local phenomenan) if its baking hot with pensioners checking out due to heatstroke then Its not weather its climate change and YOU are all to blame got that?.............Good
Cheers

actually IIRC if you look at the IPCC regional projections they suggest global warming will result in slightly increased precipitation for the UK.

[V8mate]

ludo said:

Digga said:

ludo said:

jmorgan said:

ludo said:

very accurate weather forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/

Got that bit right, I am sat right under it.

Recently spent a loverly wet soaked week in the UK. Sod it for next year, orfski where the sun is, if the government want me to spend my money here, making forecasts up has just proven disastrous.

just part of the british climate, I have yet to see good evidence to suggest that there has been a huge change in rainfall, not had any more cricket matches rained off than usual anyway

True to a point. Certainly from my years [mis]spent sprinting and hillclimbing, I always felt the events in March and April had a better chance of being dry.

However, recent summers and espcially 2007 have seen the ground absolutely waterlogged across huge swathes of the UK. I'm not saying this is [green lentilist panic]climate change[/green lentilist panic], but it is a slight alteration in what I'd grown to expect of a UK summer.

personally I think it is just natural variability, some summers are wetter than others, and purely by chance there will occassionally be a few of them in a row, but it isn't really enough of a timespan to reliably detect a trend.

People 'expect' April to be wet and are then lulled into a false sense of early summer. I think the 'April showers' reference comes from a song (or show); in reality May is almost always wetter than April.

[ludo]

V8mate said:

People 'expect' April to be wet and are then lulled into a false sense of early summer. I think the 'April showers' reference comes from a song (or show); in reality May is almost always wetter than April.

according to this climatology, the 1961-1990 baseline gives April as the dryest month of the year.

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/datasets/uk/engwal...

[Digga]

jmorgan said:

ludo said:

very accurate weather forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/

Got that bit right, I am sat right under it.

Recently spent a loverly wet soaked week in the UK. Sod it for next year, orfski where the sun is, if the government want me to spend my money here, making forecasts up has just proven disastrous.

Interesting conspiracy theory!

1. Cheer-up the embattled populace with news of impending favourable weather.
2. Try to stop some of the annual outflow of UK cash to overseas holiday destinations.

As you say, it might work. Once.

[ludo]

Guam said:

ludo said:

Guam said:

Look its not climate its weather it works like this If its cold and Pissing down its Weather (local phenomenan) if its baking hot with pensioners checking out due to heatstroke then Its not weather its climate change and YOU are all to blame got that?.............Good
Cheers

actually IIRC if you look at the IPCC regional projections they suggest global warming will result in slightly increased precipitation for the UK.

Is that before or after the Projected drier Med type Olive growing summers, and before or after the ice melt run offs moving the gulf stream? Hard to keep up on these shifting predictions you see, should I buy back my Gondolas then (rising seal level thread)? Or invest on factor 50 for the next twenty years

science is tentative and progressive, there is no good reason to expect anyone to get the projections right first time, especially as it is only very recently that the computing power for regional projections has been available. However, they are only projections anyway, not predictions, which is something worth keeping in mind.

[Tony*T3]

Bournmouth council were considering sueing the met office earlier this year when they said the bank holiday would be a total washout on the South coast. In reality, it was one of the nicest weekends of the year and those that did go to the coast found parking easy and no people on the beach. They say the forecast caused an estimated 30,000 people to stay away. Just what the local economy didnt need.

I just dont understand why the met office doesnt admit that it cant predict more than 4-5 days in advance.

[Zod]

ludo said:

Guam said:

ludo said:

Guam said:

Look its not climate its weather it works like this If its cold and Pissing down its Weather (local phenomenan) if its baking hot with pensioners checking out due to heatstroke then Its not weather its climate change and YOU are all to blame got that?.............Good
Cheers

actually IIRC if you look at the IPCC regional projections they suggest global warming will result in slightly increased precipitation for the UK.

Is that before or after the Projected drier Med type Olive growing summers, and before or after the ice melt run offs moving the gulf stream? Hard to keep up on these shifting predictions you see, should I buy back my Gondolas then (rising seal level thread)? Or invest on factor 50 for the next twenty years

science is tentative and progressive, there is no good reason to expect anyone to get the projections right first time, especially as it is only very recently that the computing power for regional projections has been available. However, they are only projections anyway, not predictions, which is something worth keeping in mind.

In other words, nobody has a clue how the climate will change over the next 50-100 years.