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:
Jim says:
“As you have pointed out on numerous occasions, the sun is entering a dead phase, which will portend 30+ years of severe global cooling. We last saw this in the 17th through 19th centuries, when ice festivals used to be held on the River Thames and snow and cold would last from late fall into mid-spring in parts of North America.”
I for one am looking forward to it. There is nothing like a winter of seemingly unending ice, snow and cold. Just the thing to watch from the window while sipping a fine wine and nibbling on crackers slathered with Brie.
A winter like that makes the warm weather, when it finally arrives, all the more welcome, and gives a certain frisson of anticipation to fall – laying in food and drink, prepping the generator, filling the oil tanks, saying goodbye for six months to the easy flow of life.
@Brian says:
“As an Englishman who has followed this site for a while, and never posted, let me just say that Piers is what we call lovably eccentric. However; it seems to me he is always more on the money than any Met office guess. Lets see, shall we.”
Well that is the point, isn’t it? Forecasting weather is difficult, especially a month ahead. The Met Office has no skill at all one month out. Piers has some. It does not take long to find out.
Above are many comments that if he was wrong for May (at leastly mostly/partly) then he has no skill. Yet he often correctly and publicly predicts major storms in the US as a favour to those who want advanced notice. People pay him every month for his analyses and predictions. Why?
The bottom line is whose prediction would you pay $$ for if you had to choose: The Met’s or Piers’?
False comparison.
Met Office = public funds
Piers Corbyn = private
If he made these forecasts for record t-storms in the North East and huge wildfires between June 29th and July 1 in May then those who wish to deride Corbyn’s showmanship will have to wait for his next forecast and hope he gets that one wrong. Because he came as close to nailing that forecast as you can hope for in weather forecasting.
P. Solar says:
July 5, 2012 at 11:16 am
Alan the Brit says: We shall see what develops, if he wasn’t any good at it he would have gone out of business by now!
False logic. Have the Met Office gone out of business?
PRAT !!!!!!
I went to school with him and his brother Jeremy. Whether they are right or wrong headed, they were neither of them charlatans.
As I understand it, even the Met Office short term forcast never betters 70% so if he, without the benefit of their budgets or computers can come even near to that, he deserves to be taken seriously.
As for the bold type and exclamation marks, yes they are an irritation, but I didnt see any claim that it was a scientific publication.
Our wonderful Met office now has the July CET at 0.0 despite the cold and rain that affected Wimbledon early in the week and despite the BBC interviewer and her interviewee at 9am on Tuesday morning at Centre Court wearing SCARVES and others wearing GLOVES in JULY!
Liars!!!!!!!!!!
No doubt when 2012 is over it will have been the warmest sunniest year evahhh!
Also, I think it’s quite unfair to call some of Corbyn’s forecasts vague given that events like forest fires are not pinpoint predictions as you can never be sure where they will start, but when you predict extremely dry conditions for a large swatch of the Midwest it is safe to predict that some even will spark a huge forest fire there.
MikeA – where’s your sense of humour and national identity? Gt Britain – note the description – is renowned for its eccentrics who carried cricket, cravats and Christianity all over the world. (Sadly cricket got transmuted into baseball in some of the colonies). The world would be a sadder and poorer place without these eccentrics.
I’ve always liked Piers I do find his layout skills lacking. That said he has been right a lot more than the MET office with their hundred million dollar computer farm. I’ll cut him some slack but expect specific predictions.
On the plus side he is making public predictions before not after the events. We’ll see how it goes for him this month.
” Willis Eschenbach says: July 5, 2012 at 11:32 am
Near as I can tell, most astrologers are more accurate than the met service, but hey, that’s just me … ”
Made me laugh. Good line, I’m going to use it.
There’s something appealing to my essential ‘Britishness’ about Piers’ low tech, ‘Ms Word’ graphics. I’ve often thought that the British would be much more convinced of the fairness and impartiality of the National Lottery if, instead of the hi-tech machines, independent observers and glitzy showmanship, the draw was performed by a vicar’s wife and a tombola filled with raffle tickets. So it is with Piers’ newsletters- low key and proud of it.
Piers is carrying on both in the style and apocalyptic tradition of “Old Moore’s Almanack” which has been published in Britain since 1697 and is still going strong. (It was written and published by Francis Moore, a self-taught physician and astrologer who served at the court of Charles II.)
Like Piers it specialises in predictions that are too generalised to be either verifiable or falsifiable – eg “The will be earthquakes in the Far East in July”, and “A cruise ship will catch fire in late summer”.
Co2Sceptic says:
July 5, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Thanks, Co2Skeptic. I have not seen the FULL forecast, because I’d have to subscribe to his forecasts to do so, and I don’t have the $$ to do so. As he says:
w.
Entire generations, arguing about the weather.
Co2Sceptic says:
July 5, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Hi Willis Eschenbach
Unfortunately, both the US and the EU links are to front pages. So people here are doing the equivalent of trying to find the precise share price from a headline “DOW Dips” and comparing it to the FT pages. Not exactly a fair approach.
I don’t know if the ‘florid advertising’ style is continued inside the professional site. Perhaps Piers would release last months pages? Indeed releasing pages published a few months ago if they are accurate would be an exceedingly strong advertisement.
My prediction is that an eccentric (but possibly very clever) nutter will beat met office and CO2 alarmist predictions any day. But please don’t role him out in front of the cameras as alarmists love to do to make us all look like ‘pratts’. : )
Just out of interest, what is a ‘Super Storm’?
The Old Farmer’s Almanac
http://www.almanac.com/weather/longrange
Note: generally predicts the Midwest and Upper Midwest will be below average temperature and below average precipitation.
Region 9: Upper Midwest
Duluth, Minnesota
JULY 2012: temperature 67.5° (1.5° below avg.); precipitation 2.5″ (1″ below avg.); Jul 1-7: T-storms, then sunny, cool; Jul 8-10: T-storms east, sunny west; cool; Jul 11-14: Sunny, turning hot; Jul 15-24: Scattered t-storms, seasonable; Jul 25-28: T-storms, then sunny, cool; Jul 29-31: T-storms, cool.
Green Bay, Wisconsin
JULY 2012: temperature 67.5° (1.5° below avg.); precipitation 2.5″ (1″ below avg.); Jul 1-7: T-storms, then sunny, cool; Jul 8-10: T-storms east, sunny west; cool; Jul 11-14: Sunny, turning hot; Jul 15-24: Scattered t-storms, seasonable; Jul 25-28: T-storms, then sunny, cool; Jul 29-31: T-storms, cool.
The last time we hit the same phase on the 66-year cycle, with stuck jet streams forcing long heat in some places and long cold in others, UHI was insignificant. Low urban density, no air conditioner compressors.
So we have the same phenomenon as the ’30s, but with temperatures a few degrees higher.
As for the super forest fires, the actual Forest Service people are blaming lack of logging and insect infestation. In other words, the idiotic “Endangered” “Species” Act, and wind turbines killing bats.
Piers Corbyn sounds a lot like a chap we have in New Zealand called Ken Ring who sells long range weather forecasts which appear more astrology rather than science. He developed quite a following, given that if you cherry pick his forecasts in hindsight you will get quite a few hits. His weather theory is based on the cycles of the moon and its gravitational pull, amongst other things. He does quite well with the sale of books giving daily forecasts for a year ahead for NZ Aus and the UK as well, if I recall correctly.
He lost a lot of credibility when, following the Christchurch earthquakes, he extended out into earthquake forecasting, again based on the gravitational pull of the moon. Chch was having so many aftershocks that he was bound to be right but one of his forecasts caused widespread panic with all flights out of Chch full with people fleeing the city. He was roundly condemned for this and he went into hiding for a while because of threats.
He will bounce back because there are always people who look at the occasional successes and belive he is on the mark while ignoring the role of chance.
Problem is, like Piers, he is a strong global warming sceptic which adds to his attraction for many but I, along with many others, do not think he is the kind of advocate scepticism needs.
Ross Lea says:
July 5, 2012 at 11:24 am
I love guys like you, Ross. You’re all too happy to tell Anthony what he can do, rather than do it yourself.
So how about YOU “obtain his forecasts and check them against the actual wearther, Earth Quakes etc. Also to be fair YOU should do the same with the Met Off and a U.S. weather forecasters.”
I definitely look forward to YOUR results, Ross, but my guess is that it will be a below-zero day in the place of eternal damnation before you report back to us …
w.
And just to add some information from the UK Daily Telegraph 7:03PM BST 05 Jul 2012….
Most severe floods of this summer expected
You thought it was bad but this summer is about to get worse with the most severe flood warnings yet issued for most of the country.
The Environment Agency warned households in central England, the North and East Anglia to be ready to evacuate their homes as two months of rain is expected to fall in 48 hours.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/9379745/Most-severe-floods-of-this-summer-expected.html
I hope it does get warm and dry where I am in the South. I’ve got several hundred board feet of primo lumber I’m trying to dry.
Laurence Crossen says:
July 5, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Thanks, Laurence. First, other than mathematical theorems nothing can ever be proven in science, only falsified, so the proper quotation is “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence“, not “extraordinary proof”.
Second, I don’t see that your statement is any less subjective than the original statement. How is the term “fundamental conjectures” any less subjective than “extraordinary claims”?
w.
Ian W says:
July 5, 2012 at 1:35 pm
You are correct that it would be an “exceedingly strong argument” to release your last month’s forecasts. If I were right as often as Piers claims that he is, I’d release my (presumably correct) forecasts every month, month by month, and point out just how right I was.
The fact that Piers doesn’t do so is of interest …
w.