Not only does the Met Office/Hadley Climate Center have trouble with pesky “moles” this week, they are now finding a staunch ally, the BBC, is questioning their forecasting ability. One wonders if they will improve using “deep black”, the 1.2 megawatt supercomputer they just purchased.
Met Office cools summer forecast
BBC environment analyst
excerpts:
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.
…
It did indeed stress at the time of the summer forecast in April that the odds of a scorching summer were 65%. It explains that it coined the phrase “barbecue summer” to help journalists’ headlines.
But this has come back to bite the organisation because many people do not feel like they have been enjoying a “good” summer, especially compared with previous searing years.
Jet stream
Some now ask if the Met Office risks its reputation by attempting to popularise its work this way.
…
The real problem for the Met Office is that this is the third summer in a row where its forecast has failed. In 2007, the Met Office chirped: “The summer is yet again likely to be warmer than normal. There are no indications of a particularly wet summer.”
We got downpours and floods in the wettest summer for England and Wales since 1912. Temperatures were below average.
In April 2008, the Met Office forecast: “Summer temperatures are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or above average.”
That did not prepare people for one of the wettest summers on record with high winds and low sunshine.
In both instances, the Met Office failed to predict the movements of the jet stream – the high-level wind that races round the world 10km above the surface.
…
read the entire article at the BBC here
h/t to WUWT reader Kristinn
There’s a chap in New Zealand called Ken Ring who did a lot of studying into the cycles of the moon. I heard him on the radio here in Ireland and both his short and long term predictions were very accurate. He also wrote a book that he distributes freely through his website in PDF form. It was an easy but phenomenal read. His predictions two years ago for Ireland was rainy Summers and mild Winters until 2010-11. So far he’s been bang on.
Coming up … people everywhere are questioning the BBC’s ability to provide the population with anything that could conceivably be called news – ‘news’ as in ‘not already obvious to everyone who is not deaf, dumb and blind’.
jeez (02:14:07), it’s cool. I am glad I attempted to be somewhat polite in my response (the new meds must be working).
OK, Big WUWT group hug!
BTW, I know where New York and London’s summer heat is…. It’s up here in Seattle!
Holy Bleep its hot up here. Yesterday was in the mid 90’s, that’s around 35 C for the rest of the world. This morning we tied an all time record high low of 69, and the all time high is expected to fall today. 100 is the predicted high, it is 76 now at 7:25 am.
To quote the venerable Buster Poindexter, it’s “Hot, Hot, Hot”
If the BBC is questioning the Met Office, let us hope we don’t have a repeat of the Andrew Gilligan ‘sexed up’ affair, which led to the resignation of both the Chairman and the Director General of the BBC (belated h/t to Dr David Kelly).
Since we’re asked to destroy our economies on the off chance that the dire climate predictions ‘might’ come true and that we ‘might’ have a chance to prevent them, I suggest the current Chair and D.G. also resign, lest their accusation that the Met ‘sexed up’ the summer forecast also provoke excessive reactions.
It’s a tough world when you’re trying to make the headlines.
PMT —
Eden also has a regular – and very interesting – column in the Telegraph on Saturdays and Sundays. He seemed to veering towards the pro-AGW camp a couple of years ago but I get the feeling that recently he has been less sure.
Which, IMHO, is the right position for a meteorologist. He digs into all sorts of arcane facts about weather events, some statistical some bizarre anomalies, which must focus the mind because it is quite apparent that virtually nothing we are seeing in today’s weather hasn’t happened before.
On the other hand Jonathan Leake in the Sunday Times seems incapable of letting an article pass without a compulsory (and often quite irrelevant) reference to global warming.
As in “… something we will, of course, have to get used to …”
Pish!
It’s certainly not true where I live. At least not when there’s actually any variability. During the summer in Western Washington, you can pretty much guarantee sunny, cloudless skies most of the time. But they have a very difficult time getting temps right. And when rain appears out of nowhere…
People aren’t stupid, they’re just slow.
I must admit a moment of air-punching and yelling “Yessssss!” when Terry Wogan, at the start of his show immediately after the news said “And they have the gall to insist we are all going to fry within ten years”.
It’s a good job the car was stationary at the time…
An alternative view of Ken ring: http://www.sillybeliefs.com/ring.html
In essence, “Weather repeats itself in cycles so you can easily forecast it from past weather records”. How did we miss that? “200 years ahead”. Right.
Last nights BBC Newsnight – Tuesday 28 july 2009
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/newsnight
Start at 30.13 – AGW in Greenland
Followed by a studio discussion on the BBQ summer
Huh, I just figured out why the Met Office called this a “barbecue summer”. It’s because we’re the only nation stubborn and/or insane enough to have a barbecue in this weather.
My wife is on holiday in Dorset at the moment and it has rained all day. I’m in Kent and it has just started to rain, but she is in her tent and I am in my house drinking red French wine and italian cheese playing whatever music I want and looking at the Internet.
In England always book holidays in May for good weather, you will be disappointed thanks to the Azores high. Summer is actually wetter.
Having said that I am joining them next week in Devon, it never stops raining there!
Regards
Andy
What we are seeing is the result of a quasi religious/political doctrine taking precedence over reality, when will we learn that it doesnt work, it didnt work in Maos China and the USSR and it wont work now, yet still the political classes try it
They are convinced by their patrons that they are the “chosen elite” who has always brought the good to the people of the world, they are the “initiates”who will save us from our evil doings.
Most of them, are really “freaks”, of course they don´t know it; so their patrons will dispose of them off after they have been used up.
Paul Hanlon (06:55:29) : There’s a chap in New Zealand… …It seems that chap secretly reads WUWT !!
Met Office has revised its long-range summer forecast, oops.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/5930378/Met-Office-revises-barbecue-summer-forecast-as-rain-looms.html
Met Office predicts ‘a barbecue summer’
AMID the economic gloom and the gathering clouds of swine flu, forecasters yesterday provided at least some cheer for this year’s stay-at-home holidaymakers – with their prediction of a scorching summer.
Derek Brockway, BBC Wales weatherman, said the predicted dry and warm summer was the result of global weather phenomena.
It’s based on using climate computer models and this takes into account many factors such as sea temperatures,” he said.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/05/01/met-office-predicts-a-barbecue-summer-91466-23516948/
I think I’ve figured out what the problem is with the “models” used by various agencies. They’re all made out of Balsa wood. 🙂
Andy W35
It is brilliantly sunny here in Devon at present…admittedly it has been pouring with rain until an hour or so ago though…
In the unlikely event it rains in Devon when you are on Holiday next week why not have a wet weather trip to Torquay to see the plaque to William Scoresby, the worlds first arctic scientist. The context and reference is right at the end of my article on arctic ice variations
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/
Not that it will rain though during this barbecue summer…
tonyb
Thanks tonyb for the words of reassurance. I will be north coasting so if it rains will be up to my neck in a rock pool at Woolacombe so won’t care anyway. The only thing that scares me is either A303 or the M5 near Bristol on the way down if someone crashes. It is a **** of a drive from Kent.
Regards
Andy
Its not just the Beeb. The Royal Meteorological society thinks they’re erroneous.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6731609.ece
They should simply admit they don’t have a clue from one day to the next, from one season to the next, from one year to the next, and from one decade to the next, never mind the next 100 years, then that would justify them being disbanded so saving the UK taxpayer many millions of wasted UK£
AndyW35
We came back from France to Devon along the A303 this Monday and were astonished at the huge traffic levels. We stopped at the Little Chef at Popham. There was a Bentley parked in the car park and we were amazed to see the crowds inside the LC. We were told if we put our names down a table MIGHT become available soon! A reservation needed for a Little CHEF! Then we found out it was the one given a makeover by Heston Blumethal. Shows the power of tv.
Have a good holiday.
Tonyb
The Met Office said: “Seasonal forecasting is still a new science.
What the hell is long term forcasting, la la science.
Tim Groves (22:24:28) :
More to the point on Piers Corbyn:
“The Met Office complains in response that Mr Corbyn will not publish his “unique” methods of forecasting.”
We can all sympathise with how upset they must be feeling about that.
LMAO how true 🙂
DaveE
My own view, FWIW, of the tone and manner of the many interviews across the various Beeb outlets today is that many of the journalists have been enjoying themselves at the Met’s expense. Scores being settled, perhaps.
Hopefully they’ll be allowed to continue examining the various contradictions / shortcomings in climate science and maybe after a year or two more they’ll feel more comfortable about asking serious and searching questions of those seeking to change our way of life.
Like many others I look forward to the Met’s stance of the various Jones FOI requests changing. At the very least I look forward to hearing the Met defending that one.
AndyW35 (00:25:39) :
Their 3-5 day forecasts are not bad at all now though.
I guess you never hitch hike Andy.
I don’t even trust their one day forecast because I do!
DaveE.
Rhys Jaggar (03:00:12) :
If there is a catastrophic increase in flooding it is due to the lack of dredging of watercourses, allied to building houses too close to flood plains.
Glad I’m no the only one to notice that.
I was born in Catcliffe Nr Sheffield. The village is now a suburb of Sheffield & has expended to cover the flood plain.
They seemed surprised last year when the flood plain flooded LOL
Re-routing of rivers, damming to mitigate flooding lower downstream all contributes. Planners just don’t seem to understand weather!
DaveE.