I’ve been given a link in email today to a public forecast page for July by weather prognosticator Piers Corbyn, which you can investigate in full yourself here. I find his web pages and forecasts hard to read, and even harder to accept any more, because in my opinion, he presents them like a carnival barker with overuse of exclamation points, bright colors, over bolded texts, random font changes, and fantastic claims. It tends to set off my BS meter like some tabloid newspapers do. Here’s his USA forecast for July:
[UPDATE: 7/8/12 – The full USA forecast has been made available by Mr. Corbyn and is available here for your inspection: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/usa-1207-july-inc-public-summary-news-page-full-fc-key-usa-maps-and-extremes-slat8a-prod-29jun.pdf ]
Some people say however, that despite all that unnecessary gaudiness, he makes accurate predictions. Because he’s made a public forecast and advertised its availability, urging “people to pass the links on”, here’s a chance to find out if he demonstrates the skill that is claimed.
He made this bold claim yesterday:
“Terrible weather is coming the world over this July so WeatherAction has issued free summary long range forecasts for USA and for Europe…”
He sounds like Joe Romm or Bill McKibben talking about “climate disruption”. Of course, it could just be another July in the northern hemisphere. Here’s the rest:
The USA pdf link is issued today on July 4th to go with the Europe link issued the day before. We urge people to pass the links on.
“We also expect very serious near simultaneous solar-activity driven deluges and stormy conditions around the world during our top Red Warning R5 and R4 periods. Any communication of the forecasts must acknowledge WeatherAction”
– Piers Corbyn, astrophysicist WeatherAction long range weather and climate forecasters
WeatherAction Free Summary Forecast for July USA:-
“Could it get worse? Yes!” – Extreme thunderstorms, giant hail and ‘out-of control’ forest fires’
pdf link = http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews12No32.pdf
(or no links twitpic = http://twitpic.com/a3y28b/full )
WeatherAction PUBLIC warning Europe July 2012 “Off-the-scale” Flood & Fire extremes likely (WA12No31)
pdf link = http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews12No31.pdf
(or no links twitpic = http://twitpic.com/a3p7pm/full )
The USA forecast map he provides is a bit hard to read, since it seems he scanned it in from print…note the dot patterns in the graphics. I present it here from his PDF page.
Here’s his forecast page for Europe:
He lists “off scale” weather in NW Europe is one of the claims. I wonder how one should define “off scale” weather.
As Carl Sagan once said:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
So now that Mr. Corbyn has put forth some extraordinary claims, we can catalog here the evidence to support those claims, and revisit the results at the end of the month. I urge readers to continue to post both pro and con evidence here as the month progresses. I’ll put a link to this thread in the WUWT sidebar so readers can add information that might be relevant.
Since Corbyn is a fellow climate skeptic, let’s give him a fair but factual evaluation to find out if these claims hold up, of if he’s simply following the path of some prognosticators of the past, such as Jeane Dixon, who made claims so broad that even a small kernel of happenstance occurrences after the fact were used to justify confirmation of the prediction. According to the Wikipedia page on Dixon:
John Allen Paulos, a mathematician at Temple University, coined the term “the Jeane Dixon effect,” which refers to a tendency to promote a few correct predictions while ignoring a larger number of incorrect predictions.
I don’t know that is what is going on here with Corbyn or not, but since he’s put out an open 
forecast, let’s find out. Inquiring minds want to know.
UPDATE: here’s a video of Corbyn explaining his methods:
Oh – one other thing – take a look at his confidence ratings when you make a judgement on the forecasts worth. And also take into account competing forecasts from standard meteorology. How did they do?
Try measuring the accuracy/frequency of the Met Office forecasts/warnings before taking pop shots at Pier’s Corbyn at least he has more thought for the general public than the Met Office seem to have who’s forecasts are updated more times than going to the toilet. Piers Corbyn can do Long Range weather forecasts which give plenty of warning weeks in advance of any severe/extreme weather event and are understandable warnings which again is something I have pulled the Met Office up on many a time recently plus on other weather related things as well. I have also seen for myself by checking space weather.com and earthquake activity websites and whether you believe it or not Piers has been spot on with his forecasts especially the extreme/severe flooding and frightening thunderstorms etc that have caused so much damage over the past few months, also with his earthquake trial forecasts recently with M6+ Earthquakes happening somewhere in the world within the periods/dates stated. One thing Piers doesn’t have is a £33 million pound Super Computer, 1,500 staff and an expensive solar paneled building unlike the Met Office who has all that plus £170 million a year budget and still get it wrong! So surely he can be forgiven for minor errors unlike the Met Office who make big blunders and never apologize but only make excuses,use smoke screens, or blame global warming to cover their mistakes. How many men does it take to produce weather forecasts ONE, Piers Corbyn!
Why are you concentrating your efforts on the period 1st to 4th July?
Piers forecast page shows 29th June to 1st July!
It took me less than 5 minutes to find this.
http://m.weatherbug.com/weather-news/weather-reports/13730
Have WUWT time and skills to investigate Piers abilities scientifically?
So far, I’m not so sure. Too much chit chat – do your research – and then return!
And remember – no one buys his abilities – to see, if there is a cloud here or there!
or whether it is written in black or white!
Piers has repeatedly predicted an unusual event, long time in advance!
It is these skills, that can mean life or death to people, and their business!
Whenever extreme events occur – he warns the public!
If mistakes, he examines and corrects his technique!
http://youtu.be/MsAZb3EY2Cc
He has passion and style!
Give him respect – make him a decent review!
Also Piers map 29th June to 1st July shows a strong band of high pressure from Oregon diagonally across the states finishing just above Florida. The pressure map you showed for 1st July shows the same strong band of high pressure in exactly the same place.
How can you call that a fail?
Sorry not Oregon, but farther north across the Canadian border, sort of Washington into British Colomibia.
WUWT I have a fair test for you, PUT THE MET OFFICE TO THE SAME TEST! make them do their forecasts the same way Piers Corbyn does! without the Super Computer, 1,500 strong man power, 170 million a year budget etc. That’s a fair test!
Also, after 15 minutes of faffing about I found this. I think Indiana to the southern mid Atlantic on the correct day is near enough for a weather event as extreme as this, to call it a success.
Or is it just me being too blasé?
http://www.examiner.com/article/deadly-storm-on-june-29-2012-was-a-derecho-700-miles-of-straight-line-wind
AW,
Just seen your post / commented bits.
1. I wasn’t aware of whatever you sent me 2 years ago, if I didn’t reply that was because I wasn’t aware – spam folder, computer crashes don’t know.
2. Glad you have now posted the actual forecast, thank you. Without that this activity would have been ‘deceitful’, which is why I used the word. So fair enough, that no longer applies. As it stands I find what you did with our reportage of the end June forecast misleading whether intentional or not, and indeed Willis E. appears to have been misled and is using it as forecast for July!
3. Measures of our skill. I reported these in other posts but again
a) look at (espec pdfs) http://www.weatheraction.com/pages/pv.asp?p=wact45 and subsequent confirmation re bets of me being £14,000 ahead with William Hill before they closed the account (about 40% average monthly profit on stakes placed I think)
b) Checkable by anybody that All the extremes in the Accuweather annual report of 2011 were predicted by us. All our past forecasts for 2011 are available in archives to subscriners at least and these matters were often news reports in our news pdfs
c) Our six 3 month ahead public forecasts of extremes around world issued October 2011 scored 5/5 and one non-runner:-
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews12No5.pdf
d) Loads of what users say, internal reports to them.
4. The 45d and 30d forecast of B+I are normally word for word the same and if different that is stated. ‘Getting colder’ was added onto ’30d’ map for 1-4th (+/-1day) and routine tabulation of wind etc also added.
5. In terms of skill that is pretty independent of look ahead in the month, it not depending on standard meteorology prognoses. In terms of A B C level Dennis wheeler (early forecast of some, not all, gales) did find A and B were better than C.
6. Please ask people to calm down a bit on detail. They are largely broad brush forecasts and that is spelt out in them and indeed exactly how Geoffrey Philpott – eg – described them last January in a farmers’ meeting. They of course, nevertheless, have more reliable detail than when he started. We are going as far as we can in possible detail but it wont all be right, what we are stating is reasonable possibilities. Forecasts have to be assessed against all reasonable past possibilities eg question 1. which is closer to obs (i) the forecast (ii) the ‘opposite’ of the forecast; 2. Then look at random past years over same periods and compare.
There is really no point in anyone concluding we are not something we don’t claim to be and isn’t ‘written on the tin’.
We are a light bulb, concluding we are not a laser gun would be churlish. Concluding we are better than a candle would be true.
Thanks PC (Btw I havnt met Nostradamus does he live in America?)
Willis, this is a good source for hail/wind/storm reports. Including a look back archive for each day.
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/
Hey this is fun!
JUNE 29th
http://www.greatlakescanoe.com/709/
JULY 1st
http://blogs.woodtv.com/2012/07/01/watch-for-a-small-part-of-sw-michigan/
JULY 4th
http://web.live.weatherbug.com/StormCentral/Page/StormCentral.aspx?
lid=SC2&&story_id=13743&zcode=z4641&zip=20002&Units=0&rnd=07022012223
3-13743
JUNE 29th
http://www.greatlakescanoe.com/709/
JULY 1st
http://blogs.woodtv.com/2012/07/01/watch-for-a-small-part-of-sw-michigan/
JULY 4th
http://web.live.weatherbug.com/StormCentral/Page/StormCentral.aspx?
lid=SC2&&story_id=13743&zcode=z4641&zip=20002&Units=0&rnd=07022012223
3-13743
@Willis Eschenbach says:
July 8, 2012 at 11:04 pm
“Piers did not say that he made no changes.”
This the second time I have quoted what he wrote in comments above, read it again:
“a) compare us with whatever anyone else said that time ahead [and NO the July forecast was made 15th June and any changes very minor on 28th (issue meaning desk top publishing) re interpretation of maps already defined unless we changed SLAT procedure which we did not in this case. If there are changes we say so].”
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 8, 2012 at 11:11 pm
“But in any case, that’s not when he predicted the heavy rain, that was the 1st to the 4th.”
On the graph section of the forecast it states *heavy showers* for the R period 6-7th. If you were to say that the 6-7th R period turned out wetter than indicated, and the 3-4th R period not as wet as indicated, I would go along with that.
Dear Willis,
I second Russ, Søren Bundgaard, Agnostic and all the others. Please give Piers a break. Let us see how the remainder of July pans out. I really enjoy all your musings, but trying to hammer Piers down like this does not seem to be your usual style.
Niels.
This is a little old but relevant and you may remember some of these classic forecast blunders.
Timeline of Met Office blunders
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/7607625/Volcanic-ash-cloud-timeline-of-Met-Office-blunders.html
@Willis,
With the rainfall data you have been using from weatheronline for your graphs, are you selecting e.g. 01:00am on the 8th July for the nearest 24hr total to the 7th July ?
beenzontoste..
“Chucked it down along the M3 in Hampshire yesterday, 7 JULY, used fog lights, headlights”
Off topic so apologies are due but I have to say this.
Fog lights should only be used in fog. (source police)
You could face a $50 on the spot fine for leaving them on. I know a bloke who was stopped and fined for this.
i Know this is off topic, but. I am in the UK, if you are referring to the Police in the UK, and they stopped you. (only use in Fog) you might gently refer them to the highway code and refuse the ticket, choosing to argue your case in a court, where you would be aquitted. Unless the magistrate was awkward of course. (Sorry m`lud) Law source: The Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 SI number 1796 part 3 sections 25 – 27.
My point is, that the visibility was about 50 metres, It was very heavy rain, (from Dorset) persistent rain, which lightened up approaching Farnborough, and by Heathrow was not raining.
This is bourne out by the met office rainfall chart displayed earlier. Piers, broadly, got it right.
As for the Science, yes, it needs testing and analysing, but also measured against the other forecasters skill, measuring the same thing. Not measuring apples and pears, so to speak.
Another one that is worth a read that makes you realise why such questions are asked.
Is the UK Met Office fit for purpose?
http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/opinion/opinion/121245-is-the-met-office-fit-for-purpose.html
This page is already loading too slowly due to clutter. People will stop visiting.
It’s crystal clear Piers won’t get a fair trial.
Willis: I suggest conciseness — orders of magnitude reduction in your word-count is easily feasible without any loss of substance.
http://i48.tinypic.com/349fbs2.png
Anthony,
How about opening a new thread with just the video of Piers and the full July forecast. Then we can discuss each period as it comes along. Would be nice if the thread could be accessed from the right margin.
Niels.
I dislike Piers’ tabloid-esque approach and lack of dispassion, but sometimes the events to match the hyperbole. This weather event occurred later than predicted, but if you knew it was coming you could be better prepared:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18653274
It is true that Piers long term forecasts are better then Met’s office long term forecast. Piers’ forecast is based on the moon-solar drivers, the Met office on models.
And I think there is more to the story then at first sight:
Met’s office forecast gets regularly off, forecasting too warm weather. It never goes both way wrong: warm and cold. This is an anomalous deviation.
I think the Met office would love to get a more accurate forecast as this would show that the models are right – as the Met’s office says they use the same models for short and long term forecast.
The fact that the forecasts are warm biased is a model problem, it does not reflect the Met’s office warm weather desire, but the models are warm biased. This shows repeatedly at each and almost every long term forecast.
It is this warming bias that makes the models be so inaccurate on medium term forecast and it definitively shows that the models are wrong.
The models work ok for several days or a week, the warm bias does not show up so fast, but the longer term they forecast, the longer the warming bias is evident. If the warm bias shows already in a quarter forecast, it is obvious that years and centuries forecasts are way out there in the meteorology nirvana.
The models are not even wrong, they have a warming bias, they are designed wrong.
Piers Corbyn (@Piers_Corbyn) says:
July 9, 2012 at 1:40 am
Thanks, Piers. You are 100% correct, my bad, moving too fast. I have replaced it with the correct forecast map. It makes no difference to my conclusions.
I don’t have a clue what you are calling “random potential forecasts”, how they would be identified, or where one would find them.
I can heartily agree with that … but that makes the forecasts pretty useless when it comes time to test them. If people find something wrong with your forecasts, you just need to say that you never claimed that they were “right in detail” … so if they are wrong in detail, at what level are they right, and how can we tell that level from “detail”? Is “giant hail” a detail, or a broad brush? It sounds like the old song about “she could easily pass for 43, in the dusk with the light behind her” … details and broad brush strokes depend on the light and the eye of the beholder …
I’m not clear here. Just what “random forecasts” are we referencing here? And no, I didn’t say “all forecasts are wrong”. I said, for example, that you got the high pressure in Florida correct, but that you got high pressure in the Rockies wrong.
You predicted “extreme thunder, giant hail, and tornado swarms” in the period July 1-4 south of the Great Lakes. Near as I can tell, none of them happened. So it’s not clear what all of the above discussion of betting means. Are you saying that if you predict “giant hail” you should get partial credit if there is hail? Because in that region of the US, hail falls somewhere about 25 days out of 31 in July … so I’m not up for giving partial credit for a forecast of hail.
w.
PS—I’m still waiting for your reply to my taking up your offer to bet on rain disrupting the Opening Ceremonies for the London Olympics … if we can agree on the details of the bet, I’m not betting on a “broad brush” forecast.
Agnostic says:
July 9, 2012 at 2:24 am
Thanks, Agnostic. I’m trying to find out if Piers is right or wrong in his forecasts. At present, I don’t care if he does better or worse than some random fool with a computer, I want to know if Piers’s forecast is accurate.
Once I can figure out if a given forecast of his is right or wrong (difficult at the best of times), then I may look to see how others have done. But I only plan to do one thing at a time, and first things first.
w.
Russ says:
July 9, 2012 at 2:48 am
So your claim is that a storm that occurred two days before the forecast period (July 1-4) should be counted as a rousing success? I can see why you folks think Piers is right all the time … his forecast was published on the day of the derecho, June 29th, so no, I’m not going to count that at all. Nice try, though.
w.