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’ USA forecast, sent out June 1, 2012 included:
June1-4. His little signs straddled the Utah and Colorado border: “Fires”,” Forest fires”. “Colorado very hot”.
June 5-8. “fire” signs in both Colorado and New Mexico
June 18-21 “serious fires” sign straddles the Utah, Arizona border
June 22-24 “Hot” “Forest Fires” sign straddles Arizona and New Mexico border.
June 29-July 1 “Very Hot” “Forest Fires” straddles the Arizona, New Mexico border.
His July forecast, sent out July 1, 2012 includes:
July 1-4 “Extreme thunder with giant hail, tornados and tornado swarms” in an area that has its southern border running roughly from northern Kentucky to Washington DC. That could be the derecho
I understand that Piers uses his Solar/Lunar technique in conjuction with existing weather records to do his forecasting. With the USA, especially the western parts, not having very many years of weather records ( compared to the UK) and the size of the US compared to the UK, I think that Piers is pretty accurate in his long range forecasting. He does use percentages of confidence in his forecasting ie: 70% confidence, timing normally to one day.
If Piers gets it right, or is perceived to have gotten it right, then he was vague enough to be counted right or we have a confirmation bias happening. If the Met Office gets it right, it is because they are established, orthodox analysts with a lot of technical work. If either of them get it wrong, they are both dummies for thinking they can forecast that far ahead in that detail.
So far that’s my analysis of typical WUWT opinions on weather forecasters not in the standard weather forecasting business. Short-term, very short term.
Credit goes to the status quo and those with status. IF there is any value to forecasting weather one month out, and again I am unsure anyone on this blog thinks so, then one of them should be more-right or more-wrong, as they approach their forecasts from different angles. If they are equal, then the approaches are equal to anothe “random walk” and we are back to “why bother” except that lots of people have jobs and computers through the desire to have somethingt that doesn’t exist.
It is interesting that Piers’ predictions generate controversy, but those of NOAA and the UK Met Office do not. We’re asked to determine Piers’ statistical accuracy, but not do the same thing for the US national air service or that of the UK.
As Penny says on Big Bang Theory (the TV show): crystals and stuff don’t work, but don’t mess around with voodoo! (We each have our real vs whoo-whoo! limits.)
At WUWT, Piers seems to be out there with crystals. Are NOAA/MetOffice real or real-voodoo-real?
And here’s my prediction for July’s weather in the U.S.: HOT.
Bet I’m right.
[Moderator’s Prayer: From your lips to God’s ear. I was afraid March was going to be the high point of the summer. -REP]
Is Piers another Irving P. Krick? I wonder if their methods were similar:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/us/irving-p-krick-89-who-made-a-business-out-of-forecasting-theweather.html
Arggh! their there not there there, never mind, there therw. Sod it!
[Fixed. I hate it when I do that. -w.]
Thread winner! (Read the entire post.)
/Mr Lynn
I have met Piers several times at realists events such as our repealtheact meetings and he’s a really nice, if rather eccentric, chap. I’ve also bought a few of his forecasts and been extremely surprised at how accurate they have been even though they had been released several weeks before time. Obviously he’s not spot on all the time but he sure is a lot more accurate than the Met Office, for which we UK taxpayers are asked to fund to the tune of millions each year.
The forecast you have is a tiny snippet of the actual downloadable forecasts. These are set out daily and are of the same % driven forecasts that the met office now also use i.e ‘80% chance of rain on 25th July in ….’ except of course that the met office now only predict (guess) 5 days in advance and change their forecasts on the hour. It seems to me that their forecasts are more like having a person in every area looking out the window, and passing on the information to the met office on the hour; but even then they are usually wrong. Mind you their daily predictions are made on the same super (expensive) computer that predicts AGW.
For instance today 5th July here in East Yorkshire we have had torrential rain all day complete with storms. The rain led to immense flooding in our local town and one building was hit by lightening and caught fire. Yesterday there was, according to the Met office, very little chance of rain here. By lunchtime today it had changed to weather warnings! I could have told them that hours before! Pretty pathetic.
We have had so much rain over the last couple of months that I almost traded in my car for a boat, and yet this same met office super computer forecast a ‘much drier than average Summer, with drought conditions that would last until the Winter’ causing the Govt. to create hosepipe bans around the country and dire predictions that this was down to AGW.
Within literally days of these pronouncements it started raining and has hardly stopped since, almost all of the bans have now been rescinded. We can now lay claim, as I like to state regularly to all who will listen, to the wettest drought in history!
Without Piers’ proper downloadable forecast I really don’t see that this can be a proper test of his accuracy. Have you talked to him about this? Maybe he might agree to allowing you access so you can truly test his accuracy? Worth a try I would have thought and far better than snide remarks about something very few of you have had access to before!
“Very Hot – Tx + NM”. In June. I guess he got that one right……
Thunderstorms forecast issued on 31 May for June. He really went on a limb on that one. Duststorms on the other hand….. A Fail it seems.
Doug Proctor says:
July 5, 2012 at 4:26 pm
“So far that’s my analysis of typical WUWT opinions on weather forecasters not in the standard weather forecasting business. Short-term, very short term.”
—————-
Thanks for your analysis, it might (yet) save ourselves from ourselves.
It’s worth mentioning that Piers is pointing specifically to his R4/5 periods which often correlate to earth facing coronal holes. The weather is never unprecedented but will be more extreme during these periods – as a basic interpretation he is saying previous weather patterns tend to repeat on cyclical basis, based upon predictable solar/lunar patterns.
The May forecast was never for the UK or England as a whole but Eastern parts (we may be a small Island compared to North America but contrasts can be massive – well for us). For 3 weeks it held well but he put his hands up when it veered away. The timing/change of patterns happened on cue but not as expected – jury is out as to what happened but even the models were struggling until this came into a reliable time frame. He did admit the prediction was wrong from around 20/21st when we had a lasting heatwave in the UK (more than 7 days) which threw the CET figures massively. I have not been able to pin down the regional breakdown as the HADCET does not appear regional for temps (precipitation is different). Philip Eden’s site http://www.climate-uk.com did show well below av temps until the 21st but by the month end it was ‘average’. It was anything but average with large rainfall and cold front loaded that month and then the dry & heat for the final third of the month. I appreciated the warning for the cold May start as I kept plants indoors – others who didn’t have suffered from lost crops.
His forecasts are a guide and are never exact. They are designed to give warning in advance of the patterns to expect – primarily this is the movement of the jetstream and the blocking which has suddenly become the lexicon of forecasters the past few years (or this solar cycle to be more precise).
To give you an example the Met Office have yellow/amber warnings close to my location for Fri/Sat. I mentioned this to a friend who extended the warning to our area knowing that the MetO mostly get this wrong. In the UK we have major problems with the CO2 asphyxiated Met Office. It really is as if the Jetstream magically does what it wants unless it’s extreme when CO2 is the be all and end all excuse (CO2 ate my hamster). Only last week we had no warnings despite most weather models showing a very high risk of thunderstorms. I watched the models for days and it wasn’t as if it didn’t show, but the Met Office were silent. Most people rely on the Met forecast (used by the BBC) as our weather guide. As it was we had very large hail in Northern areas and very heavy rainfall (for us – it’s wet here but not as wet as the Monsoon zone which I lived in). Due to Piers June forecast I had expected such an eventuality last week and that in a nutshell is why I have buy his forecasts.
Piers works from a laptop, whilst the Met Office are massively subsidised (how market friendly is that?) yet have the perpetual begging bowl out for a better computer claiming they can predict the climate in 100 years but fail to get the short term (i.e. less than 24 hours), which what they are paid for, right. That is the big issue in the UK. We pay for the ideological crud the Met Office churn out – we have no choice in this. I choose to pay for Piers forecasts, But at least I have that choice.
The July forecast therefore is for the extremes to be focused in/around the R periods not necessarily the month as a whole – a below av temp prediction is obviously for the month as a whole (or most of month) but he states 6/8 periods will be correct so forecasts are not a bible. If a forecast does not come to pass an R period often coincides with pattern changes and will be more extreme for wind and precipitation (as a general guide) +/- 1 day. That is why it’s useful. Despite the heatwave in late May we went back into cool wet weather (damn that CO2). I use his forecasts as an advisory for growing plants (which love the CO2), like knowing the early May cold meant I kept only frost/cold hardy plants outside – it worked. I gave up on the Met Office a couple of years back after using their guides and watching my plants die in droves. In this sense his forecasts are invaluable but I would agree they are not easy to read and Piers communication skills are anything but media savvy or accessible. Having said that the likes of Mann/Jones et al are Media Savvy and look where that’s taken us? Al Gore is great on TV but I’d trust a banker before him! (sorry UK joke)
Reading the comments from the UK folks it appears that it really isn’t a question of how accurate Piers is… but how wrong the Met office is. I wonder how much the 21st OWS forecasts differ from the Met office.
One comment, 9:51am 05 July:
“FWIW, the Met Office promised us torrential downpours here in the Midlands only this morning; as I write it’s a shade over 26°C and 21% RH outside, with the sun out most of the afternoon. Now, I’m off to re-wax my jacket!”
A second comment, 11.25am 05 July:
“As I sit here in Derbyshire, England, we’ve just been visited by a downpour extreme in both intensity and duration. The Met office never forecast this. Latest forecast at 18:00 was for rain to move into England from the West by dawn tomorrow.”
For those unfamiliar with UK geography, Derbyshire is technically in the east Midlands, though I’d rather more describe it as north Midlands. Anyway, my point is, why does one Midlander think the Met Office predicted rain and another think they didn’t? Thankfully someone has posted an actual forecast, though didn’t specify ‘where I live’:
‘Currently we have from the Met Office for where I live:-
“Issued at – 05 Jul 2012, 13:47
Valid from – 05 Jul 2012, 14:00
Valid to – 05 Jul 2012, 23:55
Scattered heavy showers or thunderstorms are likely at times on Thursday, particularly during the afternoon and evening, with the potential for some torrential downpours in places. Southeastern areas of England are at less risk than areas further north, with any showers there tending to clear later.
The public should be aware that these showers, where they occur, may lead to surface water flooding.”’
I’m tempted to conclude that our Derbyshire Midlander failed to comprehend the forecast, which clearly expected downpours in at least a few places, while the other two managed to stay dry on a showery day (FWIW I’m in the Southeast and there were no showers here, fine as I am in the ‘low risk’ area). What’s my point? Well, it’s mostly that I don’t think the Meto did a bad job today.
daveburton says:
July 5, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Hey, I just report them. That’s what the USGS says, and until you can come up with something more authoritative, your claim that they are somehow “questionable” is … well … questionable.
Two things about that. First, the numbers of earthquakes in the largest category is far too small given the sample size to conclude anything at all.
Second, once again we’re into the Nostradamus zone. Piers’s prognostications are so vague that you can almost always find something that fits. If the total number of earthquakes doesn’t go up, perhaps the number of quakes greater than magnitude four has gone up … and if not, we can look at the number of magnitude six quakes … then magnitude seven quakes … and so on. Color me totally unimpressed. Here’s a visual comparison of the numbers of earthquakes for the last 20 years. I see nothing remarkable about 2011-2012.
SOURCE: USGS
And of course, when Piers does make a specific prediction like “forest fires in New Mexico and Arizona”, both he and his followers say see, there were fires in Colorado, that’s definitely close enough …
No, that’s not close enough. If we’re standing a couple hundred miles apart, me in Arizona and you in Colorado, and I predict lightning is going to strike me, and instead it strikes you, I doubt that your heirs would count my claim as a correct prediction.
w.
PS—Even by your terms, and assuming that we get two more quake greater than 8.0 this year, that would make 5 quakes of that magnitude in two years … which was exceeded in 2006-2007. So no, that is not “significantly enhanced earthquake activity”, particularly when he says earthquake activity will be “probably exceeding the levels of the most active extended periods in at least the last 100 years”. That doesn’t even exceed the last ten years, much less the last 100.
Doug Proctor says:
July 5, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Interesting observation, Doug. There are several reasons for that. First, Pier’s forecasts tend to be very vague. Second, they are not available for retrospective analysis. Third, he does no such analysis himself, or at least none I’ve ever seen.
Look, I like Piers, as I said I’ve corresponded with him, and indeed he may be onto something. But until he shows that he is, we’re justified in questioning him.
Finally, as to the accuracy of the UK Met Office forecasts, we don’t have to wonder about them, because the Met Office regularly publishes the statistics showing just exactly how accurate their forecasts were at varying lead times … and Piers publishes nothing of the sort. If he did, his forecasts would likely generate a lot less controversy. Instead he claims something like “STUNNING SUCCESS” in red capital letters when he is right … and says little when he is wrong. That’s a guaranteed recipe for generating controversy.
All the best,
w.
Please, everyone…
Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions never have been, and never will be ‘weather’ events. There is no “butterfly effect” whereby atmospheric perturbations somehow cause movements in the lithosphere. Anyone who claims that climate influences earthquakes and/or volcanic eruptions is a witch doctor, not a scientist.
Just as a comment, I instinctively like the man and find him credibly sincere in his opinions and scientific conclusions. Don’t be put off by his presentation style, lack of graphical skills, Billingsgate accent or disheveled, schoolmasterly appearance. You’re not looking at a slicko marketing job from Al Gore Incorporated here; you are looking at a genuine, intelligent human being, who does all his own work and is more concerned with the content than the medium.
I have twice had the experience of introducing genuine scientific achievers from the mining industry, each on the cusp of a major ore body discovery, to stockbrockers who could have funded and massively profited from their efforts, only to have them laughed out of the room by such people, who could only be impressed by sophisticated marketing, silver-tongued conceit and the de-rigeur powerpoint presentation. The people who get it right in the mining industry are concerned with science, engineering, costings, facts, logic, hard work and precise technical details. They have no interest in doing anything that they see as unnecessary simply for the sake of appearances. Stockbrokers, conversely, are ‘prestidigitateurs’ – conjurers on a stage, with silk hankerchieves, top hats and tinselled, leggy assitants. They are only interested in the illusion of the moment, the take at the box office till and the applause of the crowd.
Piers Corbyn’s presentational style and website graphics are irrelevant. It is the content that counts, as Anthony clearly realises in focussing on it and testing it.
(The less overt marketing, the more the truth, marketing being lies by any other name: hence Gore)
Sorry, I should have spell-checked that first! Wretched bifocals to not improve typing skills..
Just as a comment, I instinctively like the man and find him credibly sincere in his opinions and scientific conclusions. Don’t be put off by his presentation style, lack of graphical skills, Billingsgate accent or dishevelled, schoolmasterly appearance. You’re not looking at a slicko marketing job from Al Gore Incorporated here; you are looking at a genuine, intelligent human being, who does all his own work and is more concerned with the content than the medium.
I have twice had the experience of introducing genuine scientific achievers from the mining industry, each on the cusp of a major ore body discovery, to stockbrokers who could have funded and massively profited from their efforts, only to have them laughed out of the room by such people, who could only be impressed by sophisticated marketing, silver-tongued conceit and the de-rigeur powerpoint presentation. The people who get it right in the mining industry are concerned with science, engineering, costings, facts, logic, hard work and precise technical details. They have no interest in doing anything that they see as unnecessary simply for the sake of appearances. Stockbrokers, conversely, are ‘prestidigitateurs’ – conjurers on a stage, with silk handkerchiefs, top hats and tinselled, leggy assistants. They are only interested in the illusion of the moment, the take at the box office till and the applause of the crowd.
Piers Corbyn’s presentational style and website graphics are irrelevant. It is the content that counts, as Anthony clearly realises in focussing on it and testing it.
(The less overt marketing, the more the truth, marketing being lies by any other name: hence Gore)
The challenge him to a bet he has to beat the UK met office or it’s US equivalent but in a manner acceptable to you both, make it a case of beer or wine or champagne. I’ve found found him to be more accurate than the Met. His most interesting claims however tie into earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and we shall see about that one.
Willis Eschenbach says:
Well, how about the top of that very same USGS web page? Is that authoritative enough?
It says there are an estimated 130,000 magnitude 3.0 to 3.9 earthquakes per year, but they only counted an average of 7,126 per year over the 12 year period 2000-2011.
That doesn’t sound like a complete count to me, does it to you?
It also says that there are an estimated 13,000 magnitude 4.0 to 4.9 earthquakes per year, but over the 12 year period 2000 – 2011 they counted an average of only 10,448 per year.
That also sounds like an incomplete count, don’t you agree?
Now, if you object to counting only 8.0 magnitude earthquakes, then I suppose you could get a more meaningful measure by counting all 5.0-and-up earthquakes, weighted by energy released. Does that sound reasonable to you?
A 1.0 increase in magnitude corresponds to a 32x increase in energy released. So that one 9.0 earthquake in 2011, which occurred a few weeks after Piers’ prediction, was roughly equivalent to 32 magnitude 8.0 earthquakes, or 1000 magnitude 7.0 earthquakes, or 32,000 magnitude 6.0 earthquakes, or 1,000,000 magnitude 5.0 earthquakes. The USGS page says that in 2011 there were no magnitude 8.0-to-8.9 earthquakes, 19 magnitude 7.0-to-7.9 earthquakes, 185 magnitude 6.0-6.9 earthquakes, and 2276 magnitude 5.0-5.9 earthquakes.
You do the math. It’s clear that, whether by luck or by skill, even if there were no more earthquakes at all in the next 9 months, you’d still have to conclude that Piers was right about the “significantly enhanced earthquake activity.”
Dave
Louis Hooffstetter says:
True, Louis, but Piers has not made such a claim. Rather, it is my understanding that he believes astronomical events (e.g., the movements of Jupiter and Saturn) affect both climate and earthquakes (as well as “space weather”).
That is not voodoo, it is quite plausible.
Dave
Re: Willis Eschenbach says:July 5, 2012 at 6:27 pm
“Finally, as to the accuracy of the UK Met Office forecasts, we don’t have to wonder about them, because the Met Office regularly publishes the statistics showing just exactly how accurate their forecasts were at varying lead times … and Piers publishes nothing of the sort. If he did, his forecasts would likely generate a lot less controversy.”
Sorry Willis but not particularly impressed by the Met Office statistics in the link you provided
” used to produce a percentage number of the times when the forecast is accurate to within +/- 2°C. This is based over a rolling 36-month period to smooth out extremes and give a representative average.”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who/accuracy/forecasts
The fact is the Met Office consistently appear to show a warm bias and are more intent on pushing out “The key message .. that global warming continues.”
These were the words uttered by Julia Slingo of the Met Office back in December 2010 during a particularly cold winter the Met had failed to forecast –
“This is not a global event; it is very much confined to the UK and Western Europe and if you look over at Greenland, for example, you see that it’s exceptionally warm there,” she said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-uk-may-be-cold-but-its-still-a-warm-world-says-met-office-chief-2165492.html
The problem was if one looked beyond Greenland one found
Australia swaps summer for christmas snow
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jv1dn_cAmrXQCkEWRMCZpKryjPpA?docId=CNG.fa1b2905c40572e9934b2e3a6b52d6f4.611
After the southern United States was hit with a rare “White Christmas,” snowstorms moved north where the major cities were pelted with snow blowing sideways.
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE6BP1EW20101226?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true
Northern India remained in the grip of cold wave with mercury hovering around freezing point in several parts of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/123129/cold-conditions-continue-northern-india.html
Thousands of livestock die in blizzard-hit north China county
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7247130.html
Not quite the ‘local event’ that Ms Slingo had preferred to portray!
In the Climategate mails I linked to above the better WeatherAction forecasts over the Met Office had prompted an Agenda 21 Director to suggest
“a joint UEA-EA-WeatherAction project to sort out the greenhouse vs. solar problem”
way back in the year 2000, something the Met Office appear to have declined!
http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/4803.txt
Piers differs from the broad sceptical position on the current weather.
Most sceptics argue that e.g.the current spell of very hot weather in parts of the USA and the very wet cold May/June/July in the UK are not unusual.
Piers argues that they are highly unusual and correspond to solar driven changes to the jet streams as we shift to a global cooling era.
He predicted months ago the current weather for the UK.
Last night the M77 was closed due to flooding.
Today 18 flood alerts are in force for the UK with one months rain falling in the next 48hours.
daveburton says:
July 5, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Of course it’s not a complete count. That’s why they include the estimates, because as earthquakes get weaker and weaker, the odds of them being picked up by seismometers gets to be less and less … is this a surprise to you, that not all weak earthquakes are counted? It shouldn’t be, because on the same webpage, directly above the figures that I cited, it says:
So no, Dave, this is not the count of the estimated several million earthquakes that happen each year. It is the count of the 20,000 or so per year that are actually measured.
Sure, that sounds reasonable. I suppose I should ask you to do it, but I’ll do it for you this time … I don’t have the data down to magnitude 5, but here are the counts for magnitude 6 and up, adjusted by energy released:
Still not impressed, sorry. Even if there are two more 8+ magnitude earthquakes this year it still won’t beat 2007, and if there are no more 8+ magnitude earthquakes the game is over.
Note again that none of this makes the slightest difference. We cannot either support or falsify Piers’s prediction, because his prediction is far too vague. So we’re off in Nostradamus land, whatever the numbers may show.
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 5, 2012 at 6:27 pm
…Finally, as to the accuracy of the UK Met Office forecasts, we don’t have to wonder about them, because the Met Office regularly publishes the statistics showing just exactly how accurate their forecasts were at varying lead times …
Sarcasm, right?
Look I’m not understanding why you (Anthony) are bothering with this?
Piers receives no funding from anyone other than what he earns selling his forecasts. I dip in occasionally and, as I said last night, he was pretty accurate in the forecasts I bought. He is eccentric in his presentation but that’s actually a part of his charm. He’s not harming anyone, he’s not forcing people to buy his forecasts, unlike the met office who cost us UK taxpayers £170m a year and fail regularly:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/30/met-office-april-forecast-drought-impacts-in-the-coming-months-are-virtually-inevitable/
If people trust Piers’ forecasts and want to invest in them then so be it, surely there are more important things to get excited about than this!
Marion says:
July 5, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Thanks, Marion, but that’s not enough information. What is it about their statistics that doesn’t impress you? Are you objecting to their methods? If so, what is your objection, and what method do you think they should be using in place of what they are using? If not their methods, then just exactly what is your objection?
I agree with that, and I don’t have a clue what that has to do with the statistics that I cited. I was answering the question about why Piers’s results “generate controversy”. So I gave that as an example, and as I said above, if Piers were to publish something similar, there would be less controversy surrounding his results.
All the best,
w.
Mr Watts
The BBC weather service is predicting up to 60mm of rain for Northern England and the Midlands today, July 6th 2012, which represents a whole month of rainfall in one day. Actually, in one morning.
Given the summer we’ve been having this isn’t ‘off the scale’, but it is certainly enough to trigger plenty of flooding.
We’d actually like your drought for about 2 weeks here!
Marion says: July 5, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Woops – should have written “something the UEA EA appear to have declined!”