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:
Piers Corbyn (@Piers_Corbyn) says:
July 9, 2012 at 2:50 am
No, that’s not “checkable by anybody”, it’s only checkable by your subscribers.
In addition, I find nothing titled the “Accuweather annual report of 2011” or anything like that, so a citation to the document in question would be useful … but not all that useful since we don’t have access to your past forecasts. In short, your claims are not “checkable by anybody”, that’s just more of your hyperbole.
w.
Niels says:
July 9, 2012 at 4:59 am
Thanks, Niels, but “give Piers a break”? Give me a break.
This is not patty-cake. This is science. Either he is right or wrong. He forecast “tornado swarms” for the period July 1-4 south of the Great Lakes. There were exactly two tornadoes in the US during that period, one in Nebraska and one in Florida …
So how should I “give him a break” on that? Ignore it? Pretend it didn’t happen? The forecast was 100% wrong, should we just look the other way because Piers is a good guy?
Yes, Piers is a good guy, and yes, presumably he is on the side of the angels … but that’s all the more reason to look hard at what he says. Read up on “confirmation bias”, it’s lethal.
w.
“Thanks, Niels, but “give Piers a break”? Give me a break.”
Oh dear, Willis. Allright then, I’ll give you a break.
😉
Willis..
“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 was posting that link in response to the WA map you posted 29th June to 1st July (in error), where Piers said there would be an extended area of thunder, large hail with tornados. There was thunder across an extended area, pushing further south than Piers orange blob over the Great lakes, and in my first link about the canoeist he mentions large hail punching holes in something or other, also on the 29th. The only thing which didn’t happen was tornados, but the amount of damage the storm did was even greater than a tornado swarm, with people stating that it was like a land bound hurricane! Tornado swarm or hurricane, same result, people dead, cars flipped, trees snapped, houses trashed.
This link does mention Fridays storm but is mainly about Sunday 1st July storm with “strong wind, large hail and flooding rain”, their words.
http://blogs.woodtv.com/2012/07/01/watch-for-a-small-part-of-sw-michigan/
Then this third link reports storms on the 4th July;
“Dangerous lightning, large hail and strong winds are the main threat through tonight.”
http://web.live.weatherbug.com/StormCentral/Page/StormCentral.aspx?lid=SC2&&story_id=13743&zcode=z4641&zip=20002&Units=0&rnd=070220122233-13743
The continuation of extreme thunder, large hail, and possibilty of further tornado type threats is what Piers forecast 1st to 4th July. Thats what happened. I’m sure you can find plenty more links if you have the time.
I don’t know if you are suffering from the heatwave Willis but 500 miles north of us in northern Scotland it was 48F yesterday, but they are expecting their own mini heatwave over the next three days at 52F. You could almost shed a tear!
USA forecast 1-4 July
“Extreme thunder, giant hail and tornado swarm events”
Report from the National Weather Centre:
1/7/12
Tornado 0
Wind Report/Hi 521/6
Hail Report/LG 212/18
Total reports 733
2/7/12
Tornado 0
Wind Report/Hi 99/3
Hail Report/LG 36/1
Total reports 135
3/7/12
Tornado 1
Wind Report/Hi 200/2
Hail Report/LG 46/0
Total reports 247
4/7/12
Tornado 0
Wind Report/Hi 222/0
Hail Report/LG 78/5
Total reports 300
Source: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/120701_rpts.html
Location was about 50% accurate with wind/hail events extending much further south than forecast map. The 1 tornado was out of the tornado forecast area.
The 29/6 and 1/7 are the top 2 Severe Weather Days (*by number of events*)of 2012 in the USA (up to 4/7/12)
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/archive/event.php?date=20120702
Why are his claims “extraordinary” and “bold”? His predictions are based on the behaviour of the sun(somewhat similar to Abdussamatov) and have been 85 percent accurate for years. His predictions are invariably right and the alarmist AGW met office claims invariably wrong. I see nothing extraordinary or bold about them
@Willis Eschenbach says:
July 9, 2012 at 11:34 am
“The forecast was 100% wrong,”
Your derecho/hurricane was on the 29th, on the first day of the R4 period (29th Jun-1 Jul), the same day we had heavier rain in the UK. OK Piers may have made that R period a little too long, but no way is that 100% wrong. The last page of the US map for June is on the article at the head of this page. The next R period is 3-4 July, and the US July forecast map shows the weather risk slightly further south, as the next line of serious storms were:
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/severe-weather-hotspots-for-th/67532
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/live-blog-fastmoving-storms-for-pittsburgh-dc/67513
That is not 100% either.
Thanks, Agnostic. I’m trying to find out if Piers is right or wrong in his forecasts.
The problem is Willis, I think you have defined what constitutes “right or wrong” far too narrowly for this type of endeavour, where we are dealing with probabilities and risk within a chaotic system. You also need to take into account how far in advance a prediction is made, and whether anyone else got anything anywhere near as close. You need to say what is ‘reasonably right’ and ‘demonstrably wrong’.
You are dwelling on whether or not ‘tornado swarms’ occurred but missing that the prediction was for a major storm type event in a particular area at a particular time. Surely that there were no tornados is missing the point that conditions meant there was a risk of them. You are further taking too narrow a view of one particular weather forecast which have less than 100% confidence using a system that gives less than 100% accuracy.
You need to define what a reasonable match in weather characteristics would be between the prediction and reality. If the prediction states gentle breezes, freezing temperatures, and a flurry of snow, then you can pretty much say that the prediction is wrong. Likewise, he didn’t predict fine sunny days, with the chance of late afternoon shower. He predicted extremely thundery stormy weather, with hail, heavy rain, and possibly tornados. If the tornados didn’t turn up don’t you think its missing the point to say “Ah – well he got that wrong!” I think you are simply asking too much of one individual prediction!
Then there are the temporal and spatial errors. Sometimes these may be wrong by a few days but the very specific event occurs. Don’t you think it is still saying something that such an event can be detected so far ahead of time using a novel technique? Even if they were regularly wrong in terms of time and location (he seems to get these right quite often too), but accurate in terms of characterization, then it’s still interesting but clearly an imperfect method. How would he know to expect such an unusual event so far ahead of time albeit not exactly when he thought it would be? These aren’t vague typical weather patterns – we are talking about big storms or significant events such as the Russian heat wave or the Pakistan floods. Did he just get lucky? He gets very lucky quite a lot then. Really lucky.
What I am interested in, is the physical basis for how he makes these predictions….this SLAT thing. I’d really like to know if there really is something to it. With a system as chaotic as the Earth’s climate there is bound to be significant uncertainty in any prediction, but if he really has developed a reliable way to devine significant climate events so far ahead of time then it deserves greater recognition than it currently gets.
I should stress – I am agnostic on this too. I have followed, but not analysed seriously his efforts for the last few years, which leads me to think there is something to them worth investigating. But it would have to be a reasonable investigation taking into context the nature of the beast – not a ‘right or wrong’ black or white judgement.
Flash flooding hits Yorkshire towns after a downpour
Once again Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire has been flooded for the second time in two weeks by flash flooding Met Office have a yellow (be aware) warning for the region, my opinion on this would be a higher amber warning (be prepared) should have been issued and this seems to be the case with the M/O with warnings they underestimate the severity and leave people unprepared for severe/extreme weather.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18775080
Russ says:
July 9, 2012 at 12:52 pm
No, that’s not what happened. He forecast “tornado swarms” for the first to the fourth. There were two tornados in that time span, one in Nebraska and one in Florida. Neither were in the area where he forecast “tornado swarms”.
Look, I’m more than happy to give Piers credit for correct forecasts, but at the same time, I will point out when, as in this case, his forecast was 100% incorrect.
He also did not forecast “large hail”, he forecast “giant hail”, and I found no reports of that either. Sorry, but I have to go with the observations.
w.
Agnostic says:
July 9, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Thanks for your thoughts, Agnostic. I have defined nothing. Piers is the one who is doing the defining. He said “tornado swarms” in the area “south of the Great Lakes” on the first to the fourth. There were two US tornados during that time, neither one in the area where he forecast it. I’m sorry, but that forecast is wrong no matter how it is defined.
If Piers wants to increase the areas or increase the width of the forecast periods, that’s up to him, not me. He is setting the parameters. If it doesn’t come within his parameters, you can’t just say ‘close is good enough’. It’s not good enough. A miss is as good as a mile. As I said before, if the Met Office says the weekend will be sunny and fine and it ends up pissing down rain on your Saturday barbecue and raining on your Sunday wedding, nobody says “well, it was sunny on Thursday and Friday before the weekend, that’s close enough”. Surely Piers needs to be held to the same standards as the Met Office.
Finally, you talk about how far in advance the predictions were made. According to his 10-page full forecast, the forecast for July 1-4 was made on June 29th, two days before the start of the forecast period … so it is not an issue.
But you still seem to be missing the point on the long-term forecasts. Once again, if Piers wants more latitude on his long-term forecasts, then he is the one that needs to enlarge the areas or widen the time-spans of the forecasts. He is the one making the claims, and I can only evaluate them based on his parameters. If his long-term forecasts are less accurate as to time or area (as one would assume they might be), then he should increase the times or the areas or both.
w.
Martin Gordon says:
July 9, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Egads, sire, you are giving results for the entirety of the US. What on earth does that have to do with his predictions for the area “south of the Great Lakes”? Take a look at the number of events in his predicted area, and see if they are more intense than the events outside his predicted area. Me I see lots of thunderstorms in the Midwest/NE during that time, we expect that, but I don’t see the extreme thunderstorms south of the Great Lakes that he is warning of.
Bear in mind that
a) there are lots and lots of thunderstorms in the Upper Midwest/Northeast in the summer. He’s not just predicting thunderstorms. He’s predicting extreme thunderstorms.
b) there is very frequent hail damage reported in many states (upthread), with the number of days of reported hail damage, not just hail but big hail, damaging hail, averaging over 20 days in the month of July. Average. In the average July, Iowa averages damaging hail reports on 28 of the 31 days of the month. So when Piers talks about “giant hail”, he’s not talking about the stuff that happens 28 days out of the month. He’s talking giant hail … I saw no reports of that.
c) Only one tornado in the entire US during the period, in Nebraska
Let me see if I can lay it out more clearly. From the source you cited and the source I cited:
First of July
The forecast area from Piers’s prediction is outlined in red. There is a small band of thunderstorms across the bottom of his forecast area. If any place should have had a heavy rain warning, it was south Texas.
July 2
Thunderstorms in Mexico and the Southeast. Little in the forecast area.
July 3
Most of the prediction area shows little action, there’s a storm in upper Michigan. Tornado reported in Nebraska. Scattered wind and hail reports.
July 4
A couple of lines of thunderstorms move through the area, as they do on many summer days. Some reports of hail and wind accompany the thunderstorm lines.
I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing ““Extreme thunder, giant hail and tornado swarm events” in the forecast area. Instead, it’s just summertime weather in the US, some wind and some hail and bands of thunderstorms drifting across the landscape.
w.
@ur momisugly Willis E
No, I didn’t see ‘Extreme thunder, giant hail and tornado swarm events’ inside or outside the forecast area either. I was presenting the data objectively and it showed that there were plenty of ‘events’ in the forecast *period* but none were out of the ordinary, there was 1 tornado (out of area) and 50% (approx) of activity took place outside the forecast area.
As a forecast of specified extreme weather for a specific area (or even no defined area) it did not validate.
Sorry, I meant verify, not validate!
We only need be concerned as to whether or not Piers is better than the MO, at forecasting the weather.
I think we can all agree that he is better by along way.
This is a reflection upon the MO and not on Piers.
End of story.
Some of you may be interested in my assessment of a Piers Corbyn forecast – which he claimed was a success – for the UK in November 2009 when Cumbria and parts of Ireland experienced record rainfall and flooding:
http://weatherearthnews.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/19th-november-flooding-in-britain.html
btw another typical Piers ploy is to predict severe weather events around the world during a given time period – and afterwards list those events that occurred just as he said they would, proving the veracity of his forecast. But forgetting to mention that as many or more such events occurred in the period before and after ……. There are, of course, severe storms and floods somewhere in the world every week, just as there are thunderstorms somewhere in the US most days in spring and summer. Forcasting them in general terms is like correctly predicting that the Kentucky Derby will be won by a horse ….
Oh, I forget to mention – earlier in this thread a few people were asking whether anyone had forecast the weather in Britain in May better than Piers. Well, I don;t do long range forecasts, but in response to his original forecast of it going to be the ‘coldest May for 100 years’, I said:
“I have a feeling the second half of May will see a change in weather patterns bringing some warm weather in and overall the month will end a little above average both regards temperature and rainfall. We’ll see who’s right!”
http://weatherearthnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/20th-april-todays-news-no-it-wont-be.html
So who was right? I admit the change occurred a few days later than I predicted, and it was even warmer than I had thought it would be. And I wouldn’t claim I made an accurate LRF. But I think I did better than Piers?
Andy Mayhew says:
July 10, 2012 at 3:45 am
“There are, of course, severe storms and floods somewhere in the world every week,”
I see distinct clustering: http://floodobservatory.colorado.edu/Archives/MasterListrev.htm
Hi Ulric
Interesting list, which includes some events which were not particularly publicised in western media, but also, for example, misses the floods we’ve had in Britain this year.
Any comparison is likely to be selective to some extent (what do we count as ‘severe weather’?) but if no-one has yet done so, might be worth looking at say one particular month and listing all the severe weather events reported that month and seeing if there is indeed grouping around the dates Piers highlights 🙂
Much as I admire the WUWT website, the ‘Putting Piers Corbyn to the test’ is a bit like having a go at your favourite maiden aunt – not really worthy, and brings more than a little shame to the ones doing the ones doing it. It would be better to celebrate a great British eccentric who gets its right more times that the Met does with its supercomputers. The world is better for WUWT, and yes, Piers Corbyn too. Kiss and make up please,life is too short and there are bigger dragons to slay which you both do wonderfully well. Best Regards.
Steve says:
“Much as I admire the WUWT website, the ‘Putting Piers Corbyn to the test’ is a bit like having a go at your favourite maiden aunt – not really worthy, and brings more than a little shame to the ones doing the ones doing it. It would be better to celebrate a great British eccentric who gets its right more times that the Met does with its supercomputers. The world is better for WUWT, and yes, Piers Corbyn too. Kiss and make up please,life is too short and there are bigger dragons to slay which you both do wonderfully well. Best Regards.”
I say: Shame on you Anthony if you don’t follow this advise. Please think again and follow up on actually giving Piers a chance. We need a thread to eveluate the remainder of July.
Andy Mayhew says:
July 10, 2012 at 10:34 am
Of the 59 flood events on my link above, 7 are not close to an R period, 8 are within 1 day, and the remainder are all within R periods. There are a number of R4 and R5 events with no flood events on that list, notably in the warmer parts of March and May.
Ulric Lyons says:
July 10, 2012 at 3:22 pm
n.b. the R period coinciding with the start date of the flood episode.
Steve Ratcliffe says:
July 10, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Niels says:
July 10, 2012 at 1:40 pm
As Hal said, … “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”.
The day that we cease testing the claims of someone simply because he is a notable eccentric, or give someone else an easy pass simply because we agree with her claims, or because we would like to see them both succeed, is the day that this website would die.
Science only works because nobody’s claims get the easy treatment. Everyone is treated to the same harsh inquisition, including my own work, and that’s how it has to be for science to succeed.
Or to look at it another way, we object when Mann and Trenberth and Jones get their work published because they have gotten what has come to be called “pal-review” instead of getting a proper peer-review. We cannot object to that and then subject Piers to “pal-review”, if we did that we would lose all of our credibility.
But it’s not a case of “kiss and make up”, I have no beef with Piers, I bear him no ill will. Like you, I think he’s a great eccentric, and I’m glad he’s doing what he is doing. As I said above, in fact as I said above twice, the world would be a poorer place without him.
However, I will also investigate his work with the same skeptical attitude I bring to the work of the worst of the AGW alarmists.
w.
Ulric Lyons says:
July 10, 2012 at 8:51 am
Humans have an amazing ability to see patterns where none may exist, it is a valuable survival trait. Here’s the list from the archive you cite, by month:
Maybe you see “distinct clustering” in that, but I see nothing of the sort.