Guest post by Steven Goddard
On July 23, 2009 the UK Met Office issued their infamous winter forecast, ahead of the coldest winter in 50 years. It read:
“…Early indications are that winter temperatures are likely to be near or above average over much of Europe including the UK. For the UK, Winter 2009/10 is likely to be milder *(and wetter) than last year “.
This was recorded by Piers Corbyn at Weather Action and several other sites on July 23.
Source:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/creating/monthsahead/seasonal/2009/winter.html (released 23 July)
I remember reading the article on the Met Office web site at the time. But something funny happened on December 30, 2009. The Met Office over wrote that link with a new article titled “Forecast for the rest of Winter 2009/10” which has no mention of the original prediction. It now reads:
…for the rest of winter, over northern Europe including the UK, the chance of colder conditions is now 45%; there is a 30% chance of average and a 25% chance of milder conditions.
Their original warm winter forecast seems to have been scrubbed from the web site, and there are no longer any press releases dated July 23.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/index.html
Other sites which noted the July 23 Met Office article and link include:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3758
According to The Independent, the winter forecast seems to have been updated on September 29, but the Met Office no longer has any press releases with that date either.
The Met Office came under tremendous fire as a result of their disastrously bad winter prediction
The Big Question: Should the BBC drop the Met Office as its official weather forecaster? By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
And this lead them to drop their seasonal forecasts, which have been notoriously poor in recent years. What could have motivated them to destroy their original winter forecast?
======================
[From AW– Note: unlike government services in the USA, the UK Met Office gets bonuses, see their benefits package:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/recruitment/benefits.html So, this might be an incentive to remove poor work products.
The Times did a story about it last August after the BBQ summer fiasco: It’s raining bonuses at the Met Office
And the Met Office Chief, despite botched forecasts, got a 25% pay increase in January 2010, according to this Telegraph story:
Met Office chief receives 25 pc pay rise
The head of the Met Office, the national weather service which has been heavily criticised for getting its forecasts wrong, is now paid more than the Prime Minister, after receiving a 25 per cent pay rise.
]
======================
———————
For the record, here are a few of of their other classic mis-predictions:
2007 – forecast to be the warmest year yet Wrong – la Nina hit and temperatures plummeted.
Met Office forecast for Summer 2007 Hot summer – Wrong – it was the wettest summer on record with cold daytime temperatures.
A typical British summer 2008 Wrong – it was the second wettest summer on record with cold daytime temperatures.
Trend of mild winters continues 2008 Wrong – it was the coldest winter in 15 years.
Summer forecast 2009 “Barbecue Summer” 2009 Wrong – another miserable washout of a summer.
Warming could push Greenland ice sheet beyond ‘tipping points’ Complete nonsense
Steve Goddard (08:45:32) :
MartinGAtkins (07:51:27) :
Do you have a reference/link for that text?
I haven’t, but:-
1DandyTroll (09:21:16) has.
Is there anything WUWT users can’t find?
I’m a Pig Farmer, and due to the poor Meto Winter forecast I lost alot of my Hogs over the Winter, which is quite devastating to my Pig Farm in Devon. (SW England) Alot of my Grunts (a word we use here for Farm Hands) spent many months digging out Frozen Carcasses from the fields, and we would have usually provided temporary Hog Houses if we had known the Cold was coming.
I used to be a strong AGW supporter over the years, but have recently been changing my mind. We had been told to be prepared for Mild Winters with no Snow, and I had geared up my Hog Farm for the future Climate, but it is not happening, and this was all advised by the Met Office.
I am one really annoyed Hog Farmer, and we lead a simple life and don’t understand the science as we cannot do that being simple country folk, but we need to listen to the experts and we have been let down, and I need to Breed extra Hogs now over the year which means more Hog Food to buy and all the trouble with mating.
Bastardi happy with Met Office graph!
http://www.accuweather.com/video.asp?channel=vblog_bastardi
P Hearnden (10:34:56) :
You obviously have internet access and a computer, so in the future watch the UK Weather forecasts provided by Accu Weather’s Joe Bastardi who predicted this winter in the summer of last year.
Here is the web site: http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/index.asp
You can’t keep pigs or other animals in England without warm stables or shelters to keep them out of the cold, rain and wind.
The chill factors are to high and you have to take care of sufficient protection.
If I were you I would send the UK Government the bill for your losses.
Drum up your fellow farmers who suffered losses as well, take a lawyer and go for it!
When I once visited the Met Office in Exeter they boasted of how their forecast for Exeter Airport was significantly more accurate than for any other airport in the UK. And how this illustrated the value of knowledge of local weather patterns in providing accurate forecasts.
Perhaps they’re right, but I couldn’t also help wondering if the ability to be able to sanity-check that particular forecast by looking out of the office window might also be helping there!
Steve Goddard (08:45:32) :
MartinGAtkins (07:51:27) :
Do you have a reference/link for that text?
very good work !
well, as of now, it’s no good to copy and paste the text, add the link, and save that for later use …
this is indeed a great and, especially, well executed disappearance trick … we’re very lucky that 1DandyTroll has found the link to the European Archive …
your reference to the Independent is right … on 29th September, there was an update of the original post and news release … the 29th September link was the one I used on my personal blog … but without a snapshot, I’m referring to something that doesn’t exist … (well, exist it does, but not in its original form …)
never thought that they would turn to tactics like this … not the Met Office …
we should adknowledge the lesson from this …
The Norwegian equivalent of the MET Office – Met.no issued a seasonal forecast 16. November 2009 predicting that the south-eastern part of Norway was likely to experience 2 degrees (Celsius) warmer than average this winter (December-January-February). In the beginning of March we found that the average had been more like 3 degrees (Celsius) colder than average for the same area and period, i.e. the prediction was 5C warmer than reality.
The responsible for seasonal predictions at met.no is no other than Rasmus Benestad, well known from RealClimate.
This is unfortunately a major reason why the general public does not believe… In AGW. Supposed pinnacles of meteorological perfection keep having to hide, erase, shred, destroy or stonewall evidence of their errors. With each incident of trying to rewrite their bumbled history – the ranks of skeptics swell.
Thank you Met Officers of Deny, Delay and Deceive – you are winning the war against yourselves.
MattN (16:24:44) :
A drunk monkey with a dartboard is more accurate than the Met office….
And you know how we feel about monkeys!
””””MartinGAtkins (09:49:19) : – . . . . Is there anything WUWT users can’t find?””””
Martin,
: ) Perhaps the list of things we (or at least some of us) cannot find starts (or ends) with any unequivocal evidence of CAGW? Some would say any evidence at all, maybe forget the unequivocal part.
John
The Met doesn’t have to be successful. They are funded by the government. No matter what they do the money comes. And apparently the more the are wrong the greater the amount of money that comes to them. No pressures to be right.
It’s like the educational system in America.
Roger Knights (04:18:11) :
“And commodity speculators, and food processors.”
My food processor broke. One cheap little plastic part that is not replaceable so a $225.00 piece of equipment is now garbage.
I had that happen with a couple of mine, and then I bought a Cuisinart. It seems as though it has thought through a lot of these issues, And that it has spare parts available.
(Now you’ll tell me that YOURS was a Cuisinart!)
Man at shredder. Wearing tie.
Where’s the Elfin Safety!? 🙂
Bernd Felsche (06:13:33) :
I attended a talk by Frank Abagnale, the con-man turned FBI agent from the movie “Catch Me If You Can.” He said that the only type of shredders that are any use are microcut shredders. He said that documents shredded by other types produce a pile which can be reassembled in half an hour.
Shortly after the July washout last year a local BBC weather forecaster (i.e. not a national wallah, but on regional telly – Yorkshire it was, iirc) gave a very lucid explanatin of how the Met Office arrived at its forecast. In the preceding 150 years, he noted, there had been only two sequences of years where there had been three wet summers in a row (incredible though that seems in the UK). Since the summers of 2007 and 2008 had been very wet themselves, the balance of probabilities lay with 2009 not forming a third three-year sequence of wet summers.
So there it is, the Met Office’s “developing science” of seasonal forecasting was simply a matter of playing the odds. And they bust.
For this they get trebles all round.
“ P Hearnden (10:34:56) :
I’m a Pig Farmer, and due to the poor Meto Winter forecast I lost alot of my Hogs over the Winter, which is quite devastating to my Pig Farm in Devon.
…
”
I did not make this post – it’s a pack of lies and insults directed at me by a troll.
I wonder if Steve might say if impersonating other people, people like me who show him and this blog the respect of using our proper names (even if we strongly disagree with most of what is said), is acceptable here?
ThinkingScientist (06:48:49) :
I followed the link to the Met Office. The funniest graph is the picture of rainfall prediction. It gives the following probabilities:
Drier 30%
Near Average 35%
Wetter 35%
Instead of buying a supercomputer they can just toss a coin next time.
Andy Brooks (08:47:35) :
The Met Office used to have a real incentive to get it right, before climate science and computer models. It was founded as a forecasting service for the RAF and even now is an agency of our Ministry of Defence.
The D-Day landings in June 1944 were delayed and timed exactly by the Met Office, the need being for 3 clear days, despite political pressure from Mr W Churchill and others to get on with it.
I bet those guys are looking down in amazement at the current shambles.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
These agencies like The Met, NASA, and the NOAA are government agencies. They do exactly what the government wants them to do. For D-Day the British government wanted correct weather forecast. I was produced. In the 60’s the American government wanted a man on the Moon. NASA produced it.
Now both governments want a Cap N Trade system. The Met, NASA, the NOAA, the NAS, etc., are producing it.
MartinGAtkins (09:49:19) :
Steve Goddard (08:45:32) :
MartinGAtkins (07:51:27) :
Do you have a reference/link for that text?
I haven’t, but:-
1DandyTroll (09:21:16) has.
Is there anything WUWT users can’t find?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Maybe we can find all of James Hansens work from 1987 until today. 🙂