Met Office - We knew really!!?!
Discussion
Puggit said:
Rofly Lollers said:
tonym911 said:
Classic. The front (sic) of these people is astonishing.
They haven't got the foggiest. Puggit said:
HowMuchLonger said:
Yesteray the forecast for my area on the 11th was 4degrees. Take a look now and it shows the temp for the same date is -11degrees. They do not have a clue.
It's impossible to forecast 8/9 days ahead. You're as silly as they if you believe it.HowMuchLonger said:
Puggit said:
HowMuchLonger said:
Yesteray the forecast for my area on the 11th was 4degrees. Take a look now and it shows the temp for the same date is -11degrees. They do not have a clue.
It's impossible to forecast 8/9 days ahead. You're as silly as they if you believe it.It is possible to forecast likely trends for that kind of timescale (Joe Bast.ardi does this very well) - but websites that give this kind of forecast are misleading us all.
Puggit said:
HowMuchLonger said:
Puggit said:
HowMuchLonger said:
Yesteray the forecast for my area on the 11th was 4degrees. Take a look now and it shows the temp for the same date is -11degrees. They do not have a clue.
It's impossible to forecast 8/9 days ahead. You're as silly as they if you believe it.It is possible to forecast likely trends for that kind of timescale (Joe Bast.ardi does this very well) - but websites that give this kind of forecast are misleading us all.
The problem is that the things we are seeing this year (solar minima, volcano dust, southerly jetstream, La Nina) are extraordinary, so the models are losing the plot.
The accuracy threshold is now down to about 3-4 days IMO for general weather and considerably less for snow.
Bloody great isnt it.... Met Office forecasts are generally a bit crap and vague at the best of times and I really dont get how they still remain in the position they are. Oh, and dont forget that they have one of the most powerful computers in Europe and still get it wrong!
I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
off_again said:
Bloody great isnt it.... Met Office forecasts are generally a bit crap and vague at the best of times and I really dont get how they still remain in the position they are. Oh, and dont forget that they have one of the most powerful computers in Europe and still get it wrong!
I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
Here is your answer: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/chri...I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
It is no longer a scientific entity but a political one.
DonkeyApple said:
off_again said:
Bloody great isnt it.... Met Office forecasts are generally a bit crap and vague at the best of times and I really dont get how they still remain in the position they are. Oh, and dont forget that they have one of the most powerful computers in Europe and still get it wrong!
I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
Here is your answer: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/chri...I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
It is no longer a scientific entity but a political one.
ninja-lewis said:
DonkeyApple said:
off_again said:
Bloody great isnt it.... Met Office forecasts are generally a bit crap and vague at the best of times and I really dont get how they still remain in the position they are. Oh, and dont forget that they have one of the most powerful computers in Europe and still get it wrong!
I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
Here is your answer: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/chri...I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
It is no longer a scientific entity but a political one.
ninja-lewis said:
DonkeyApple said:
off_again said:
Bloody great isnt it.... Met Office forecasts are generally a bit crap and vague at the best of times and I really dont get how they still remain in the position they are. Oh, and dont forget that they have one of the most powerful computers in Europe and still get it wrong!
I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
Here is your answer: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/chri...I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
It is no longer a scientific entity but a political one.
There's a lot of accurate information in the Telegraph article content, easily verifiable if you weren't aware of it beforehand as many others were.
Which elements are wrong due to you having found credible evidence to falsify them?
turbobloke said:
ninja-lewis said:
DonkeyApple said:
off_again said:
Bloody great isnt it.... Met Office forecasts are generally a bit crap and vague at the best of times and I really dont get how they still remain in the position they are. Oh, and dont forget that they have one of the most powerful computers in Europe and still get it wrong!
I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
Here is your answer: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/chri...I gave up on the Met Office forecasts a while ago. I tend to use a couple of commercial forecast services, one of which being AccuWeather. I have found, when I have used it, AccuWeather is very close to what I have seen, even down to the per-hour forecasting.
So if a commercial company can get it vaguely correct, why cant the Met Office?
It is no longer a scientific entity but a political one.
There's a lot of accurate information in the Telegraph article content, easily verifiable if you weren't aware of it beforehand as many others were.
Which elements are wrong due to you having found credible evidence to falsify them?
Elsewhere the Telegraph quote BBC New's Environment Analyst as saying to the Radio Times:
“The trouble is that we simply don’t know how much to trust the Met Office. How often does it get the weather right and wrong. And we don’t know how it compares with other, independent forecasters.
“Can we rely on them if we are planning a garden party at the weekend? Or want to know if we should take a brolly with us tomorrow? Or planning a holiday next week?
“In a few year’s time hopefully we’ll all have a better idea of whom to trust. By then the Met Office might have recovered enough confidence to share with us its winter prediction of whether to buy a plane ticket or a toboggan.”
That makes it look like the BBC is criticising the Met Office. Unfortunately, it's a rather selective quote. In the printed edition of the RT, the full quote is:
“The trouble is that we simply don’t know how much to trust the Met Office. How often does it get the weather right and wrong. And we don’t know how it compares with other, independent forecasters, most - but not all - of whom base their forecasts on Met Office data. And, bizarrely there's no independent assessment of the accuracy of weather forecasts in the media. Are they any more reliable than your barometer?"
In reality, Harrabin is involved in a BBC News' weather project, which plans to assess the reliability of a number of different forecasters, including the Met Office - since we have no information about how accurate any of them actually are. It's a bit like how the media claim that the BBC was considering dropping Meto - when in reality the contract was simply up for renewal, as contracts tend to be from time to time.
They also omit a quote earlier in the column where Harrabin says: "To be fair it [Meto] did forecast in November that December would be bitter, but many of us may have taken the prediction with a truckload of salt."
Perhaps people are less inclined to believe the forecasts because of antics like the Telegraph's? Funnily enough, while the Telegraph is trying to spin Harrabin's comments as attacking the Met Office, the very same blog they used as evidence of the phantom "mild winter" forecast complains that the comments are the BBC trying to defend the Met Office!
It seems the Telegraph and their sources are unable to grasp that different types of forecasts provide different kinds of information at different stages for different audiences.
ninja-lewis said:
turbobloke said:
It's quite ironic that you comment on factually accurate reporting using opinion rather than evidence.
There's a lot of accurate information in the Telegraph article content, easily verifiable if you weren't aware of it beforehand as many others were.
Which elements are wrong due to you having found credible evidence to falsify them?
The same issue I highlighted at the top of the page. He cites the Met Offices no longer publishing seasonal forecasts and then suggests they did based on a bunch of blogs. However, what the blogs had done was link to a October Global Probability Map (based on global models using raw data), which is not a forecast for specific area and is intended for use by other meteorological services, not the public. It is not to be treated like a forecast for tomorrow. He then goes into a one-sided rant about global warming, ignoring the possibility that other factors (unrelated to global warming) are screwing the models at the moment. Meanwhile without offering any evidence to justify his position, he criticises the assessment that winter conditions are independent of preceding winters - because this somehow implies global warming (it doesn't, it just means winters can be hotter, colder or the same on average as before).There's a lot of accurate information in the Telegraph article content, easily verifiable if you weren't aware of it beforehand as many others were.
Which elements are wrong due to you having found credible evidence to falsify them?
Elsewhere the Telegraph quote BBC New's Environment Analyst as saying to the Radio Times:
“The trouble is that we simply don’t know how much to trust the Met Office. How often does it get the weather right and wrong. And we don’t know how it compares with other, independent forecasters.
“Can we rely on them if we are planning a garden party at the weekend? Or want to know if we should take a brolly with us tomorrow? Or planning a holiday next week?
“In a few year’s time hopefully we’ll all have a better idea of whom to trust. By then the Met Office might have recovered enough confidence to share with us its winter prediction of whether to buy a plane ticket or a toboggan.”
That makes it look like the BBC is criticising the Met Office. Unfortunately, it's a rather selective quote. In the printed edition of the RT, the full quote is:
“The trouble is that we simply don’t know how much to trust the Met Office. How often does it get the weather right and wrong. And we don’t know how it compares with other, independent forecasters, most - but not all - of whom base their forecasts on Met Office data. And, bizarrely there's no independent assessment of the accuracy of weather forecasts in the media. Are they any more reliable than your barometer?"
In reality, Harrabin is involved in a BBC News' weather project, which plans to assess the reliability of a number of different forecasters, including the Met Office - since we have no information about how accurate any of them actually are. It's a bit like how the media claim that the BBC was considering dropping Meto - when in reality the contract was simply up for renewal, as contracts tend to be from time to time.
They also omit a quote earlier in the column where Harrabin says: "To be fair it [Meto] did forecast in November that December would be bitter, but many of us may have taken the prediction with a truckload of salt."
Perhaps people are less inclined to believe the forecasts because of antics like the Telegraph's? Funnily enough, while the Telegraph is trying to spin Harrabin's comments as attacking the Met Office, the very same blog they used as evidence of the phantom "mild winter" forecast complains that the comments are the BBC trying to defend the Met Office!
It seems the Telegraph and their sources are unable to grasp that different types of forecasts provide different kinds of information at different stages for different audiences.
Moving on from the Telegraph but in terms of the different types of UKMO forecast, their audiences and intentions, UKMO see their processes as converging in future so that a single (still less than useless) model is used for 'predictions' on various timescales. They acknowledge that as climate predictions aren't based on observations (!) then the process is different, which is to say they're based on fundamentally flawed computer models, something that isn't indicated. The Met Office also say that their weather predictions have an inherent source of uncertainty in terms of errors in the initial state observations they use, then claim that climate predictions aren't based on such initial observations and so bypass that source of error - yet this masks a fundamental source of error in computer climate models where discretisation is equivalent to the introduction of artificial boundary conditions i.e. a modeller decision on starting values replaces initial observations but with the same effect as the boundary conditions chosen will affect the solution markedly in the same way as errors in initial observations. Should that not be pointed out, and in its absence is the Met Office misleading its readers?
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/...
As if that wasn't enough, the IPCC in its Third Assessment Report said “In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled nonlinear chaotic system, and therefore that long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
So why is UKMO doing very expensive but totally pointless climate forecasting, which is clearly 'not possible', what is their motivation, what influence does that motivation have on its weather forecasting models particularly in view of the 'leadership' they have, and did it influence what and when they've been saying to ministers and the public?
The OP started out by indicating an act by UKMO that seems to be undisputed. The Telegraph coverage of Mystic Met's faffing about added to the picture in a meaningful way and there is little by way of inaccurate or misleading content in either aspect.
Guam said:
off_again said:
Bloody great isnt it.... Met Office forecasts are generally a bit crap and vague at the best of times and I really dont get how they still remain in the position they are. Oh, and dont forget that they have one of the most powerful computers in Europe and still get it wrong!
Playing world of warcraft on it wont help with the forecasting much though 
IforB said:
Since the met office got rid of forecasters in various locations and now rely on their fancy super computer, then their forecasts are pretty cruddy. I've spent my life staring at weather reports and forecasts, one thing I have definately noticed is a reduction in accuracy overall.
I frequently use the inshore waters forecast and shipping forecasts, and have found they are much less accurate than they used to be. The last few seasons, when checking the forecast for a sailing trip it has been the standing joke that we now know what the weather won't be, as it seems to always be wrong.ninja-lewis said:
In reality, Harrabin is involved in a BBC News' weather project, which plans to assess the reliability of a number of different forecasters, including the Met Office - since we have no information about how accurate any of them actually are.
Allow me to assist. If they say that AGW is true, then they are woefully inaccurate.HTH.
Guam said:
Harrabin . . .
Anyone citing that woeful apology for a Journalist loses all credibility in defending anyone let alone Mystic Met.
Cheers
The self styled environmental 'analyst' and scientific soundbiter for the BBC who has no appropriate qualifications for preaching and prognosticating the tripe he foists on us weekly - at or expense, whether we want it or not - thanks to the 'impartial' BBC.Anyone citing that woeful apology for a Journalist loses all credibility in defending anyone let alone Mystic Met.
Cheers
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