UPDATE: Forecast humor on steroids, here
You can’t make up FAIL like this. First this story in the BBC Today:
Now let’s have a look at the official Met Office forecast for April, issued on March 23rd, 2012:
Met Office 3-month Outlook
Period: April – June 2012 Issue date: 23.03.12
SUMMARY – PRECIPITATION:
The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier than average conditions for April-May-June as a whole, and also slightly favours April being the driest of the 3 months. With this forecast, the water resources situation in southern, eastern and central England is likely to deteriorate further during the April-May-June period. The probability that UK precipitation for April-May-June will fall into the driest of our five categories is 20-25% whilst the probability that it will fall into the wettest of our five categories is 10-15% (the 197-2000 climatological probability for each of these categories is 20%).
CONTEXT:
As a legacy of dry weather over many months water resources in much
of southern, eastern and central England remain at very low levels.
Winter rainfall in these areas has typically been about 70% of average,
whilst observations and current forecasts suggest that the final totals for
March will be below average here too. The Environment Agency advises
that, given the current state of soils and groundwater levels in these
areas, drought impacts in the coming months are virtually inevitable.
Read the entire forecast here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/i/A3-layout-precip-AMJ.pdf
Saved copy here: Met_Office_A3-layout-precip-AMJ
Obviously, the power sucking supercomputer they recently put online needs to be bigger.
It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.
GIGO me thinks. This isn’t the first time this has happened:
Met Office admits they botched snow warning
And then there’s the BBQ summer fiasco, which prompted replacement of the seasonal forecasts with the shorter term one you see above:
Met Office ends season forecasts – no more “BBQ summers”
Maybe they should stick to DART (Digital Advanced Reckoning Technology) which can do the job of making forecasts equally well, using less power, less space, and less money: 
h/t to Charles the Moderator and Adrian Kerton over at CA in comments.
In my part of England – North Yorkshire – we have a BBC weather forecaster who usually gets it right on the short forecast and is very pragmatic about the long. He is also very circumspect when it comes to making comments on climate change, which is an essential trait when working for the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson
In the meantime when northerners can look on the southern draught with schadenfreude
Is this the wettest drought since records began?
We’ve had rain here on every single day since the drought was announced. Annoying but not really a disaster.
There is some concern about the poor folk on that newish Watermoor housing estate in Tewkesbury. Although the name was a clue they don’t want to get hit like five years ago.
It’s nowhere near as bad as the great flood of 2007 when we had the Mythe water treatment works knocked out and no tap water for a month.
The hosepipe ban stays in place though as we’ve stopped using the local expensive Dowdeswell reservoir and only take the water from the Severn and boreholes. A false economy it seems.
Ironically, the hosepipe ban doesn’t save much water directly. The idea is to make people think about saving water and not wasting it. Yet, right now, no-one is thinking of watering the garden anyway.
Even the ducks look depressed.
Surely also worth a mention is that we have had two exceptionally dry winters in a row (one very cold) when the official AGW line from them is that we would have warmer wetter winters.
tonyb
Here is the Met Office outlook for the month of May.
Source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html
Now that’s how I remember UK weather, highly changeable. 🙂
Not the “wrong type of rain”, but the “wrong type of ground”.
Nothing’s ever “right” in AGW Land-particularly when there is a computer forecast involved.
Yes folks, soon power prices will ensure it’s far to expensive to run supercomputers programmed to agree with policy makers! It’s back to haruspex and entrails, a considerably more cost effective, future divination technique, and one that carries with it the added advantage of diminishing the methane producing headcount. Must surely get the eco-warriors approbation.
All I can say is that it’s a good thing there was no such thing as super computers when the D-Day landing were being planned on 6th of June 1944.
Similar thing happened in Spain.
40 days ago people were complaining about not raining at all and of course, they blamed it on climate change.
Now they are complaining about the rain.
All I can say is that it’s a good thing there was no such thing as super computers when the D-Day landings were being planned on the 4th and 5th of June 1944.
Oh dear. Looks like London citizens should keep their barbecues indoors.
May forecast from Accuweather is largely overcast with rain.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/london/w1b-2/may-weather/328328
We’ll have to wait and see but I do believe Piers Corbyn uses a laptop.
Stephen Parker; of course you would be better off with a pine cone!! That’s the certain way to make the temps go up sharply, like a…errr…hockey stick?!!
If after having a soaking throughout April we were to have a warm dry summer then I could live with that. As it is, this year is starting to remind me of the summers of my youth in the 60’s & 70’s when it seemed to rain all the time, just about the same time they were getting worried about a coming ice age.
Why use millions on Met Office computers(hardware) when you have to use political UNFCCC conform software on it? The results are political predermined and the results have to be UNFCCC conform.
This is just an advanced seance machine.
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/auction-kings-seance-machine.html
or
http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/robotsculpt.jpg
They just have to put UNFCCC conform labels around dials and reading and its a steal at 375 USD.
?
@JustMEinT Musings
RE: Last I read the British were in for water rationing what the heck happened?
We have water problems rather than a lack of water over here. I live in the north west of England and it’s been a very moist month. Over in the east and south east they’ve had a much drier time over an extended period. This is compounded by our population being skewed towards the south and south east in particular (i.e. London).
The issue is getting the water from the wet regions (we have and will not have any restrictions on usage) to the dry ones. It’s certainly nothing new nor caused by excessive changes in rainfall patterns. It’s caused by mismanagement and underinvestment.
So, 121mm of rain in a month in England constitutes a devastating drought……. Bluddy hell, no wonder people complain about England’s weather….. A man ‘ud need a snorkel ta walk th’ dog….;-)
People living here simply can’t go for an hour without discussing the weather, and some feel the need for an authority to lead these discussions. There will always be a demand for long-term predictions, however futile the effort seems to be. And it is bound to be futile because there is just not enough data to work with; the turbulence over land is mind-boggling at all scales, and there is not enough land to let things settle enough to be predictable; this country has maritime weather everywhere, subject to influences from very far away and from all directions. This may seem strange to the inhabitants of large continents, who typically enjoy reliable two-day forecasts. I can only remember maybe a couple times in 15 years when the next-day forecast for Northern Illinois was egregiously wrong, being right on the money most of the time. I don’t think such quality of forecast is technically possible in this country. Temperature predictions are reasonably robust (although I did see the next-day forecast adjusted by more than 10C just recently), but precipitation is really not predictable at all.
City buses in Cambridge still carry ads asking everybody to donate 20 litres of water to a drought fund.
Due to a lack of knowledge and understanding as to how the weather system works coupled with Chaos, it is not yet possible to predict weather. Skeptical minds question whether the prediction of climate is any better.
Climate change is being used in the UK to cover up bad management. We are constantly being told that droughts will become more common due to climate change and water rationing will become more prevalent.
However, the UK, which is a small island surrounded by sea, is a very wet country and due to its topography, it always wil be. There will be no shortage of water in the UK. All that is required is proper managment of resources, since rainfall will always be plentiful in Scotland, North England/Lake District and Wales.
The reason why there are water shortages, mainly in the South East is all due to poor management. We have aging infrastucture which is leaking to the hilt. Little is being done to prevent these leaks. In the South East there has been a massive increase in population these past 30 years due to immigration (most immigrants setttle in the South East) so the demand for water has increased dramatically. However, during this period, not one single new reservoir has been built. There is no new storage capacity in the South East, so it is not surprising that it has diificulty in smoothing over periods between low rainfall and high rainfall.
Negligently much new building has taken place in flood plains. Hence when we get a little extra rainfall, we are bombarded with images of homes under water and this is blamed on climate change. However, these areas were flood plains because in the past nearby rivers were prone to flooding when it rained. They are flood plains for a reason.
The problem of building new houses in these areas is that the cost of home insurance has increased for all (everyone has to share in the costs of rectifying the damage) and for some propertuies the premium costs are so prohibitive that home owners cannot afford home insurance.
All of these problems could have been avoided with sound management, but I guess that it is a sign of times including that no one carries the can for this sytemic failure, instead the liberals and political elite deflect attention blaming climate change and the evils of humanity in emitting CO2. .
Met Office April Forecast: “…drought impacts in the coming months are virtually inevitable.”
The Environment Agency advises that, given the current state of soils and groundwater levels in these areas, drought impacts in the coming months are virtually inevitable.
To forecast tomorrow’s weather the MET Office requires an accurate forecast of today’s weather. The reason for this is that the model is so complicated and requires so many variables (millions) that the seed data cannot come from observations but only from a previous forecast.
To this end, the MET office requires a huge computer so that it can try to generate enough forecasts that one of them is close enough to the actual weather that they have something to forecast forward from. In other words, they spend computer time trying to forecast today’s weather.
Who gets to choose the winning forecast?
Ken Hall:
Words matter. It is Orwellian Newspeak to claim the word “drought” means other than it does. And there is no drought in England.
However, the untrue assertions of such a drought enable nonsense such as that from ‘david brown’ who says at April 30, 2012 at 11:37 pm;
“A warmer climate, with its increased climate variability, will increase the risk of both floods and droughts (Wetherald and Manabe, 2002 ] .”
His clear implication is that the “drought” in England is an expected effect of AGW.
There is no drought in England, but at April 30, 2012 at 11:36 pm you assert;
“All these things combine to create a real drought (due to a low water table) with floods if it rains heavily.”
NO! A drought is a physical impossibility in a region which is flooded.
“All these things combine to create a” shortage of stored water, but that shortage is not a “drought”.
The government has imposed an “Official Drought” to impose the hosepipe ban. But that does NOT mean there is – as you claim – “a real drought”. It only means the Ministry Of Truth has made a declaration.
The Free Dictionary defines drought as follows:
drought (drout) also drouth (drouth)
n.
1. A long period of abnormally low rainfall, especially one that adversely affects growing or living conditions.
2. A prolonged dearth or shortage.
You admit that;
“Firstly there is the low level of rain fall over the last two years. Every few decades there are periods like this.”
So, clearly you admit there has NOT been a “long period of abnormally low rainfall” and the “dearth or shortage” has not been “prolonged”. Indeed, a “shortage” does not yet exist and the ‘hosepipe ban’ has been imposed in attempt to avoid such a “shortage”.
A shortage of stored water for the now-existing population in Southern England has resulted from increasing the population while failing to build any additional reservoirs since 1975. This shortage could be overcome by providing connection of water supplies available in the North and West of England (e.g. by renovation of existing canals and using them to provide the connection).
Words matter.
Southern England has a shortage of stored water as a result of factors which have nothing to do with altered weather and/or climate.
Importantly, Southern England does NOT have a drought.
Richard
The Met Office and the hysteria from government agencies are a national embarrassment. We were told to expect up to 60,000 deaths from bird flu the winter before last by our Chief Medical Officer. The water companies have been telling everone in the South that they could have water rationing with things geing so bad that people will have to take containers to stand pipes to fill them with water like some third world country. We have police and firemen who won’t save the lives of people due to health and safety (apparentlythey need special equipment and training to deal with someone left to drown in three feet of water!!). Our once great country has been reduced to a laughing stock.
Christopher Booker in his excellent Sunday Telegraph column says that the reason the Met Office keep getting it wrong is because they have factored in global warming into their computer program. Since global warming stopped over 12 years ago their forecasts are going to be wrong until they remove that factor
Not too sure the Met office got it wrong. They said drier than average but it all depends on how they calculate average.
If they used historical figures then clearly they messed up but perhaps their baseline starts in 2100 with their computed projections!
Oh, those April Skies……
Meanwhile here in Scotland on the 1st of May, the ski slopes are still open with excellent conditions – see
http://www.cairngormmountain.org/
Excerpt –
Last Updated on: 01/05/2012 10:41
HIGH AVALANCHE RISK ON THE CORONATION WALL AND HEAD WALL.
PLEASE STAY CLEAR NO MATTER HOW TEMPTING IT LOOKS.
It also remains very cold up here for the time of year, but the BBC weathermen say it is to warm up this week. GIGO there then!
Me? I prefer to use the French website linked below which I found over a year ago and which, although it most often contradicts the MET office forecasts substantially, is almost always correct.
http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=180&mode=1
I think a cold May is in the offing for the UK at least, but we can rely on the MET office to falsify the CET record as usual so as to conform with and confirm their religious beliefs.