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:
Willie wrote, “Dave, you still haven’t responded to my underlying problem with Piers’s claim, the vagueness that underlies all of his claims.”
I’m not talking about “all of his claims.” I’m talking about one specific prediction, which, when he made it, I thought preposterous… but which turned out to be spot-on.
I’ve not paid any attention to his weather forecasts, and have no opinion about them.
“He makes no mention of how we are to measure the earthquakes.”
There’s really only one reasonable way, plus ways that approximate that one reasonable way.
“There are three obvious possibilities–number, magnitude, and energy released.”
Wrong. “Number” is not a meaningful measure. There’re millions of insignificant earthquakes every year. Nobody knows how many, they can’t be counted, and they don’t matter.
Magnitude and energy released are really the same thing. The “magnitude” number is, very roughly, equivalent to a shorthand notation for the energy released by a single earthquake.
Total energy released is how you sum the sizes of multiple earthquakes. It is the only reasonable way to do so.
“By two of the three measures, there is nothing unusual.”
The only measure by which there might be nothing unusual is the completely meaningless one: the count of insignificant earthquakes.
As for magnitude of individual earthquakes: We had a 9.0 quake — only the 2nd in 47 years — just a few weeks after his prediction.
As for total energy released: 2011 was huge, and 2012 is on track to be way above average, too.
There certainly does appear to be some kind of cyclical element to the frequency of big earthquakes. In this USGS “top 17 earthquakes since 1900” list:
The 1950s & 1960s had 7 top-17 earthquakes, including the top 2 and 3 of the top 6.
The 1970s through 1990s had none.
The 2000s & 2010s have had 6 so far, including the other 3 of the top 6.
“By the third one, energy released, there is an anomaly…”
Translation: Piers was right.
Come on, just say it.
You can say that you think he was just lucky. But you can’t say he wasn’t right.
“…although it does not appear to be statistically significant…”
Justify that, please. If you can.
“Three separate times, he said ‘More earthquakes’.”
Sloppy language, granted, but it was obviously shorthand for “more big earthquakes” or “more earthquake activity,” because the total number of earthquakes is inconsequential and unknowable, and because he also used the synonymous but more careful phrase, “significantly enhanced earthquake activity.”
“I’m sure if there had been a bunch more earthquakes you would have claimed victory as well.”
1. Nonsense, because if there were we’d never know it. There’s no way to know how many earthquakes there are. They cannot be counted. Only big ones can be counted, and if you count them it only makes sense to weight them according to their sizes (energy released).
2. It’s not my victory! I have no dog in this argument. Like Anthony, I cringe when I see Piers’ garish newsletters, and I really and truly believed he was nuts when he made that earthquake prediction. Nobody was more shocked than I was when he was vindicated.
I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and in this case credit is clearly due. To my complete shock, and he was right.
“Since there weren’t more earthquakes…”
You don’t know that. There’s no way to know whether there were more or fewer insignificant earthquakes.
“The problem, of course, is that 2011-2012 is not a solar minimum…
You’re right. Since he’s showed up here, perhaps he’ll explain that.
*** Piers, will you please address that question? ***
“PIERS DIDN’T PREDICT MORE POWERFUL EARTHQUAKES, HE PREDICTED MORE EARTHQUAKES.”
Shouting doesn’t make this very weak argument any stronger. You’re nit-picking his prose, and cherry-picking from it, too. The phrase I noted was “significantly enhanced earthquake activity.”
THAT, we certainly got!
“There haven’t been more earthquakes. Period. There have been a couple more powerful earthquakes, but there have not been more earthquakes.”
Willis, in the trenches here in NC, I’ve been arguing about sea level with Climate Movement activists who are absolutely certain of things they can’t possibly know. I’ve come to expect that sort of nonsense from them. A few days ago a UNC Professor in the Biology Department even called my description of the principle of buoyancy (Archimedes’ Principle) “crazy logic.”
But you are just about the last person in the world I thought would ever have that problem. So many times I’ve seen you carefully, and often very originally and entertainingly, analyze a problem, with open eyes and open mind. It’s almost your trademark! I’ve never before seen you defiantly proclaim as Revealed Truth that which you can’t possibly know.
The number of earthquakes is determined almost entirely by the number of insignificantly tiny earthquakes, and they can’t be counted, because they can’t be reliably detected.
The amount of earthquake activity is only reasonably quantified by summing the energy released by them, but it can be approximated by summing the energy released by just the largest earthquakes.
Willis, w/r/t the good point that I thought you made (“2011-2012 is not a solar minimum”) I regret that I didn’t go back to Piers’ newsletter to check what he wrote. You quoted his headline; this is what he wrote further down (emphasis mine):
Willis, I hereby withdraw the “you’re right” that I addressed to you, and the “Piers, will you please address that question” that I addressed to Piers.
Piers, you asked Willis, “Why are you going on about earthquakes,…
Well, that’s my fault. I posed this, and Willis answered with this, and off we went.
Wish people would remember that predicting the weather is not like predicting the outcome of a horse race. It is not binary. You cannot evaluate generate weather predictions with what happens locally.
Weather is a chaotic system, you will NEVER get 100% accuracy.
Thanks Piers, for putting up the entire 10 page forecast. You have always been fair and honest.
Piers Corbyn (@Piers_Corbyn) says:
July 6, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Piers, it is good to hear from you. Let me start by quoting what I said above:
Let me add that I find your work and your forecasts fascinating. My regret, as I said above, is that you have not made the whole of your past work public. I understand that you are running a business, and that you are wisely not exposing your business secrets. What I don’t understand is, once your WeatherAction News is no longer timely, once the date of the most long-range forecast in that issue is past, why have you not published that issue? That way, we could all see and understand the strengths and weaknesses of your forecasts.
Now, it’s clear from your post you have problems with something that I wrote … but what? If you would quote what I said that you object to, I could respond to it. As it stands, I don’t have a clue what it is that I wrote that you are objecting to. All I know is that your are ASTOUNDED by it. The lack of details is an insuperable obstacle.
You make vague assertions that I have somehow done you wrong, but you neglect to quote what it is that I said that you are objecting to.
For example, I was clear (I thought) that I had not seen the entire forecast, just the summary. I said:
Despite my making it perfectly clear (I thought) that I was only talking about the summary, you say that I am “treating a summary … as all their is”. I am not treating it as all there is. I am discussing what I have access to. I read you have published a full WeatherAction News, and I commend you for that.
From my perspective, you said that
For reasons of concern over the upcoming “terrible weather”, you’ve released a summary forecast. Presumably it contains valuable information. Presumably it has some substance. I am fully justified in dealing with your summary forecast as a summary, and pointing out any flaws it might have, just as I am free to comment on or point out flaws in the abstract of a peer-reviewed scientific paper. It’s all we have to discuss … so that’s what we discuss.
So … in any case, I think it’s great that you have joined the discussion, it’s good to hear from you again. Again let me request that you quote what I said that you object to, my actual words, so that we can discuss it.
w.
PS—On another subject, you say:
Piers Corbyn (@Piers_Corbyn) says:
July 6, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Piers, you may well have done so … but I can’t find it anywhere, and your capital letters, while impressive in your newsletters, in this context establish nothing but your belief. A link to where you made the statement would put the matter to rest.
We’re talking about earthquakes because the topic is your claims regarding forecasting the future, and you have claimed to be able to forecast earthquakes. Did you expect to make that claim and not have it discussed?
PPS—You also said:
Depends. I’m a betting man, if only for the publicity … as a chance to discuss what makes a falsifiable forecast and what is vague handwaving. I got a hundred bucks US if the odds are right. What odds are you offering? But I’m not fool enough to bet on what you call a “disruptive downpour etc.” without first spelling out the “etc” in great detail.
As examples. Are you just talking about rain falling on the Olympic Stadium itself? What if no rain falls on the Olympic Stadium, but it does fall on the ring roads and disrupts the Opening Ceremony? How much rain are we talking about? What are the time boundaries? Noon to midnight? Twenty-four hours? Just during the Opening Ceremony itself, and if so, what are the hours?
For me to win the bet, I have to show that your forecast was false. If we don’t spell that stuff out in that detail and more, then your forecast is much harder to falsify. So give me the odds, and the time and place and amount of rain you are forecasting and which rain gauge will be used to measure it, whatever terms you want to put on it. Only then can I see if I want to take the bet.
Looking forward to it actually.
My best to you.
I feel foolish asking, but Piers says “In order to do this I make available for publication on this site the FULL 10 pages of forecast for July USA as the pdf.”
I feel foolish because I looked and looked and I couldn’t find the pdf, although a couple of commenters sounded like people had seen it … where is the link to the 10-page forecast? I’ll be fascinated to see it.
Many thanks,
w.
Corbyn says:
“For completeness this month we have NOW (6/7 July) also posted our EXTREME Warnings Brit+Ire JULY Forecast SUMMARY PAGE as issued 28Jun (very similar to ’45d’ forecast issued 15 June) http://twitpic.com/a4q45r/full ”
According to the summary page:
1-4 July Heavy rain with thunder, hail and floods over most parts of Britain and Ireland.
Correct? No.
5-7 July Showery and breezy/windy in Scotland, N Ireland and N England. Showery with broken cloud in central parts. South brighter.
Correct? No.
Martin Gordon says for the UK
“1-4 July Heavy rain with thunder, hail and floods over most parts of Britain and Ireland.
Correct? No.”
What planet do you live on Martin?
This forecast was correct.
I don’t know about the hail but the rest is spot on.
“5-7 July Showery and breezy/windy in Scotland, N Ireland and N England. Showery with broken cloud in central parts. South brighter.
Correct? No.”
Again a reasonable forecast for this area with locally heavy showers at times.
I have been following Piers Corbyn for about 5 years now and have bought a few of his forecasts.
My judgement of him is this:
1. Long-range forecasts are most accurate when predicting really extreme events, since these are most likely to be the things where cyclical footprints are likely to be identifiable in the historical databases. His predictions of cold in December 2010 and 2011, several months in advance, were spot on. His forecasts for later in those winters, often closer to the event, were less accurate but by no means completely wrong.
2. I think you need to be realistic in how you evaluate his ‘predictions’. Let’s take May 2012: his predictions from 1st to 20th of very cold and wet were really accurate for the SE of England. However, we had 10 days of hot weather (23 – 27C) with no rain from 21st to 31st. That means that the monthly average was wrong, but the reality of what happened in the first three weeks of May was important for gardeners, farmers etc. Of course, the likelihood of getting the last 10 days right in advance is less than getting the first 20 days right. Isn’t it?
3. His June and July forecasts have broadly said it was going to be wet and cool in the SE of England. So far, that’s exactly what we got and the BBC is saying that next week our top temperatures will be 17 – 19C with night-time temperatures decreasing to 11C. We’ve already had rain every day in July here in the SE and we avoided all the floods further north.
I agree with other posters that Piers could do with a PR professional/marketing specialist to present his forecasts in a more amenable fashion. Entrepreneur mavericks often find that difficult to accept.
I suspect also that Piers could do with some support staff to professionalise the retrospective analysis methods, the definitions of various forecasting outcomes (hot, cool, windy etc etc) and also, to be blunt, to churn out the standard forecasts. Piers would be best employed optimising the methods used and being the expert called upon when distributing particular forecasts of economic importance (in the UK, that is floods, widespread snow cover, frosts/cold temperatures for farmers and overall summer temperatures for certain crops).
Not to put too fine a point on it, he needs a professional CEO for his business and he needs to be prepared to take commercial direction from them.
Whether he wants to do that is up to him of course.
Where were the floods in that first period Bryan? Remember, we’re not talking about our backyards but ‘most parts of Britain and Ireland’
The period June to present has been a series of heavy rain events causing severe flooding in the UK (where I live).
Martin perhaps you live in Outer Mongolia but here is a flavour of our recent weather;
………………………………………………..
Met office issued 4/7/2012
July follows where June left off with more wet weather to come
The theme of wet weather is set to continue this week – with particularly persistent and heavy rain affecting parts of the UK over the next few days.
………………………………………………
Now Piers predicted this general theme months ago!
The long range Met Office forecast on the other hand was for drier than average conditions.
This led to hosepipe bans in several areas.
Give Piers some credit for calling it correctly.
In particular when he added that the net prevailing wind for this period would be East to West which is quite different from the prevailing South Westerlies which is the usual pattern for the UK.
I don’t think that weather can be predicted to the accuracy of plus or minus a day months in advance.
His prediction for May held for the first three weeks but also for the last few weeks of April .
I would think that the weather pattern had merely advanced slightly quicker than he calculated.
However he was not satisfied with that and he has made adjustments to his program.
Piers Corbyn (@Piers_Corbyn) says:
July 6, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Thank you for joining in. I’ll be waiting for the end of the month to see how accurate you were. I’m not expecting hour-by-hour around-the-globe forecast perfection. Considering how far ahead you work, I’ll have give you a big thumbs up if you can come in at 60-80% correct.
Meanwhile, I’ll be Binging every day to see if my forecast for raining frogs happens this month. I could get lucky :o)
I often suspect with some of Piers forecasts is that sometimes the forecast is characterized correctly but the timings are wrong. For example, but for the last week of May, the forecast of May being the coldest on record would have been correct if May had started a week earlier. I wonder if July is looking like that too, with the characteristics correct, but the timing slightly out?
@Rhys Jagger July 7, 2012 at 3:21 am
This assessment is line with my perception as well.
I would love to see a properly skeptical independent analysis done of his forecasting.
Willis Eschenbach
You say to him, “Now, it’s clear from your post you have problems with something that I wrote … but what?”
The tone of what you said was a bit harsh. It sounds like you were part of those saying he’s just a quack that luckily gets it right now and again. You don’t speak, in word, as harshly as that. But in the tone, well, I think it’s safe to say you don’t sound friendly.
And it could be you don’t realize you came across like that.
Thanks Bryan, I was referring to a specific forecast for specific dates. I note that you were unable to answer my question,
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
July 7, 2012 at 8:50 am
Thanks, Amino (great screen name, by the way). I was quite careful (I thought) to be clear that I do not think he’s a quack. I said:
As to my tone, I fear that I am a plainspoken man. When someone forecasts fires in two states, and then claims success when fires occur, not in those two states, but in a neighboring state, I fear I may not treat such claims with kid gloves.
However, as I pointed out, Piers has not said what it was I said that upset him, so I’ll wait for him to respond.
All the best,
w.
@ur momisugly Willis: I don’t think anyone could accuse you of being “plainspoken.”
d.
Rhys Jaggar (July 7, 2012 at 3:21 am) wrote:
1. “I agree with other posters that Piers could do with a PR professional/marketing specialist […]”
2. “I suspect also that Piers could do with some support staff to professionalise […]”
3. “Not to put too fine a point on it, he needs a professional CEO for his business and he needs to be prepared to take commercial direction from them.”
My interpretation of this comment…
(sarcasm on)
Divert all the research money to:
1. marketing.
2. admin.
3. CEO.
To h*ll with ruthlessly prioritizing research almost no human can do.
Cosmetics before substance.
(/sarcasm off)
Here’s an example of why it’s hard to judge whether Piers is correct or not:
Here’s the rainfall data for all English stations, and split by north and south:
DATA SOURCE: WeatherOnline
So … was Piers’ forecast correct? Overall, I’d say no in both cases. The period July 1-4 had less peak rains than either before or after. And the period July 5-7 was not “brighter” in the south than the north, the south was rainier both in peak rain and in total rain.
In addition to the peak rains being higher before and after July 1-4, there was also more total rain in the four days before July 1-4 (1905 mm) and in the three days after July 1-4 (2191 mm) than there was from July 1-4 (1815 mm).
My point here is not whether this specific forecast was right or wrong. It is that we have two people actually living in the area affected by Piers’ forecast, and they have come to very different conclusions regarding the accuracy. This is why it is crucial to compare the forecasts, not to whether someone says “Spot on” or not, but to the actual data.
w.
Willis and Martin obviously don’t live in the UK
For June and into July the UK news stations are carrying items on unusual flooding and very heavy rain.
“Brighter” does not automatically mean more (or less) rain.
We often have very overcast days with no rain.
For this particular period April to July Piers has an outstanding record for accuracy.
Its nit picking to say he was wrong on a particular day when the forecast was given months in advance.
As several posters have pointed out he is well ahead of any other forecasting methods.
What annoys certain people is that Piers says atmospheric CO2 extent is irrelevant for climate prediction.
Perhaps your linked graph would make more sense if you included the long term UK average for June(9.8mm) and July(8.5mm)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_United_Kingdom
David, UK says:
July 7, 2012 at 10:33 am (Edit)
The dictionary says:
w.
Thanks for expanding on my post Willis. Like you I was looking at the forecast areas as a whole to make my assessment. Bryan seems to only refer to his backyard.
Piers sent the file to Anthony at 10:50PM Pacific time Saturday.
Anthony: Please check your e-mail.
Best Regards.
Friday – sorry – not Saturday.
Thanks Bryan, I do indeed live in the UK.
My post was in direct reference to a July forecast that Corbyn had posted. You say “Its nit picking to say he was wrong on a particular day when the forecast was given months in advance.” To be precise I was commenting on the forecast for the first week of July which was divided into two halves, the first half containing, widespread floods and heavy rain, the second half indicating more showery conditions. It was wrong. What is the point of issuing a longer range the forecast in detail ( periods of 3 to 4 days) if it then has to be defended that it’s unfair to expect it to be accurate because it was issued ‘months before’ Although I note it was actually issued on the 28th June!
I think your rainfall figures are a bit low Bryan!
Martin says
“I think your rainfall figures are a bit low Bryan!”
Well look at the table I linked for England.
Check your own figures and then contact Wiki