(elevated from a comment on the Putting Piers Corbyn to the test thread ) Willis Eschenbach says:
Martin Gordon says:
I note that Piers is declaring this period (13/14) a success on the Weather Action website.
Thanks for the link, Martin. I hope folks are starting to see why Piers claims such a high success rate. Here’s his map for the period:
OK, so what are the important parts of his forecast? Obviously, it’s the shaded areas where he predicts “thunder, tornados, and giant hail” in the north central region, and “thunder, tornados, and large hail”, in red meaning extreme warning, for the Great Lakes and eastward.
Here are his claims that he says “verify” his forecast.
R4 period 13-14 July extreme events verification:
=> USA
– Sev Thunder events Seattle ~13-14th http:fb.me/23Zp3jkkI CONFIRMS WeatherAction long range specific warning for 13-15th on USA Maps forecast 13-15 July + Piers discusses on fb
Let me echo Martin’s amazement that a single comment on Facebook is taken as a verification of his forecast. Anyhow, here’s the Facebook comment (emphasis mine)
Severe Thunderstorms Possible In Seattle (1:10PM PDT 7/13/12 -Charchenko) Hello everyone, after those exciting thunderstorms arriving earlier than usual through the seattle metro area. Were in a break in the weather right now up and down the I5 corridor but storms are still rumbling around port townsend and sequim areas. We are under a slight risk for severe thunderstorms west of puget sound which is extremely rare and usually only happens once every 5 years. We could see some large hail around 1″ and damaging winds possible, we could even see a few supercells! We will continue to update throughout the day monitoring these storms!
To which Piers replies:
Thanks for informative posting. VERY INTERESTING. Our WeatherAction long range forecast issued June29th [Free this month, email piers@weatheraction.com with ‘USA PLEASE’ in title bar] predicts thunder in Pacific NW ~ WA, OR, ID, MT for 13-15th July (and did not predict any for July prior to that). Thanks, Piers
I suppose you could claim that someone on Facebook saying “severe thunderstorms possible” is a verification of the forecast, but take a look at the actual weather service storm, hail, and tornado reports for those two days …
Very little happening there at all, certainly no concentrations of thunderstorms, either in his forecast areas or anywhere.
– 13 July BIGGEST hail in 30yrs http://www.king5.com/your-news/162444096.html WA NW USA
– Sev Thunder Warning Union+Wallowa Co OR 14th till 3:00pm PDT. #orwx CONFIRMS WeatherAction long range thunder specific forecast for OR 13-15th
I’m sorry, but a single report of hail in Oregon absolutely does not confirm a forecast of hail in the upper midwest, or Great Lakes/New England. Piers forecast said NOTHING about hail in the Pacific Northwest, this is totally bogus.
– Severe Thunderstorm Watch for portions of the area in ID until 11:00pmMDT/10:00pmPDT. #idwx CONFIRMS WeatherAction long range thunder specific forecast for ID13-15th
Again, there may have been a “severe thunderstorm watch” for Idaho … so what? Take another look at the actual storms shown above. I gotta give him credit, though … he has used other people’s warnings and claims that thunderstorms are “possible”, and also thunderstorm watches, in other words other people’s forecasts, as confirmation of his own forecasts. This is sheer forecasting genius, right up there with claiming that a forecast of a 50% chance of a typhoon was verified by no typhoons.
Finally, take another look at the map of his forecasts, and compare it to the storm reports. The few places that there actually was hail in the US were places that he did not forecast hail. The places he gave the strongest forecast for extreme thunderstorms, hail, and tornados saw only a couple scattered thunderstorms, not a single report of hail, and no tornadoes.
And yet he is trumpeting these results as a verification of his forecast? I gotta say, “verification” must mean something very different on his planet.
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 16, 2012 at 11:16 am
“(Although to be fair, in this case it was easy, the two highlighted areas around the Great Lakes where you forecast “thunder, hail, and tornados” and “thunder, giant hail, and tornados” in red, and for which you are claiming CONFIRMED, had no hail at all, no tornados at all, and little thunder … confirmed? NOT.)”
Are you saying that these hail events were outside the highlighted area?
http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/ab195/weschenbach/spcstormreport120713.jpg
Looks like 2 tornadoes to me on the 15th, not much hail anywhere but the wind damage I was expecting from the enhanced wind production from the recent flare and CME activity, is in the right area, hail is hard to forecast for, the NWS only does so when the radar suggests they should include it in the warnings.
This whole packet of narrative forecasting is too hard to evaluate, so I just present the composite raw data from four cycles for others to draw conclusions about, it is a lot easier to evaluate detailed maps than narrative forecasts. But not all of the events that have happened in the past FOUR cycles will all happen this ONE cycle, it is a good learning tool and Piers is making the best of his to learn as he goes, it is called trial and error in the early stages for good reasons.
Conditions were not as ripe for a repeat of the last flare CME / Derecho out break at the first of the month, the recharge times for repeat occurrences is part of the learning curve we are seeing, progress is slow in complicated undertakings.
forgot link http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/120715_rpts.html
Ulric Lyons says:
July 16, 2012 at 11:46 am
My bad, when I looked before I thought those few hail reports were just outside one of the areas, but some of them are just inside one of the areas. Are you saying that his forecast of “giant hail” was anywhere near correct?
w.
A review of Piers’ July 13 & 14 Forecast does not constitute a thorough analysis of his Solar Lunar Action Technique. It is a pin-hole examination.
The fact that Piers is no longer allowed to enter into lotterys predicting the weather, because he runs circles around everyone else, speaks volumes about his accuracy.
A two day analysis of Piers’ work, is the kind of science we have grown to expect from the agw crowd. Not Willis.
Piers posted a link to a photo of a hailstone in Seattle, Washington, described as the “Biggest Hail in over 30 Years”. It looks to be about twice the size of a thumbnail, or about one inch or a bit more. Note that it is posed in a childs hand to make it look bigger. Piers described that as “ginormous” by English standards … I guess they must have wimpy hailstorms in England.
I took a look at the 2011 severe hail reports. There are about 17,000 reports of severe hail in the US in 2011, or about 45 per day … so you can see that predicting severe hail is a mug’s game.
In any case, more than half (53%) of the severe hail reports were in the range from one inch to an inch and a quarter … and one report from Washington had hail an inch and three-quarters in diameter. The biggest hail reported was six inches in diameter, and there were 164 reports of hail over three inches in diameter.
So is 1″ hail “ginormous? Only in the UK, it’s about average for severe hail in the US.
w.
Charles S. Opalek, PE says:
July 16, 2012 at 2:18 pm
I have been examining his claims for July as the month has been proceeding. I looked at the earlier parts of his July forecast in another post. I have nothing else that I can examine, that’s the only forecast that Piers has made public. If you don’t like the fact that I can only examine what Piers has made public, then bust Piers for not making his past forecasts generally available. Oh, wait, I did look at the one “audited” forecast of his. It was as bad as this one, see my comments above and on the previous thread.
Well, that’s what Piers claims, at least. Given his propensity for doing things like claiming success in predicting 6 typhoons when only two occurred, I do not place much weight on his claims these days.
If you think I’ve only looked at two days, you’re simply not following the story. Get your facts straight before uncapping your electronic pen. I’d love to look at more of his work but guess what—HE KEEPS HIS PREVIOUS FORECASTS SECRET, so not only I, but nobody can do the kind of analysis you are asking for.
Finally, in this post I am not examining whether his forecasts are correct. I am examining whether he claims success when his forecast is a failure … and for that, it turns out that two days is a reasonable sample. Plus, of course, his claim that the solar flare during a time when he forecast “no solar factor” shows that high solar factors lead to flares … all that might even possibly prove is that solar flares lead to high solar factors.
In any case, stay tuned … July’s not over yet.
w.
@Willis Eschenbach says:
July 16, 2012 at 2:12 pm
“My bad, when I looked before I thought those few hail reports were just outside one of the areas, but some of them are just inside one of the areas. Are you saying that his forecast of “giant hail” was anywhere near correct?”
I’m zooming the WA pdf forecast page to 400%, and (ctrl+) zoom on here:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/120713_rpts_filtered.gif
and I would say there are all within the shaded area, including the large hail event. I have no idea what Piers meant by giant hail.
How Irish farmers forecast the weather: If you can’t see across the valley, it’s raining. If you can see across the valley, it’s about to rain. (From “The Last Resort” by Dan Binchy.)
The fifteenth century prophet Nostradamus is said to have predicted several major world events many years or centuries in advance, such as the rises of Napolean and Hitler. What does one find when one looks at his written works – a HUGE volume of text – around 1000 prophetic-poetic works. Much of this is vague stream-of-consciousness.
With such a large volume of rambling text, by statistical chance some passages will bear resemblance to future events. Vagueness and imprecision of language help to widen the “net”.
Richard Holle says:
July 16, 2012 at 11:58 am
Thanks, Richard, yes, I was just looking at the first two days. On the 15th there was a waterspout and an F0 (the weakest on the scale) tornado. These are preliminary reports, and often don’t survive closer examination … but let’s assume they are correct. Since on an average day in July there are four tornados in the US, I hardly think a waterspout and an F0 tornado justifies a warning in bright red of “Thunder, tornados, and large hail”.
Finally, I don’t understand when you say
Where are you presenting it? What raw data? What am I missing?
Many thanks for your comments,
w.
PS—You also say:
The derechos were at the end of last month, on June 29th, not in this month. I can find no record for increased CMEs (coronal mass ejections) or flares prior to the derechos, but I might have missed it … what is the citation to the claimed flares/CMEs upon which you are basing your statement that derechos are related to the sun and its flares/CMEs?
Ulric Lyons says:
July 16, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Thanks, Ulrich, your could be right, it’s a close call … but bear in mind that perhaps one of those are above average size hail, perhaps not, and that on an average July day there are 50 reports of severe hail in the US …
I hardly see how that weather supports a claim of “thunder, tornados, and giant hail”, since there were neither tornados nor giant hail …
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 16, 2012 at 4:25 pm
“but bear in mind that perhaps one of those are above average size hail, perhaps not, and that on an average July day there are 50 reports of severe hail in the US …”
The report states that the size of the largest hail was estimated from a photo, presumably with a scale reference. I would tend to bear in mind that large hail and tornadoes cluster on certain days, and the key issue here is whether that happens to be regularly on “R” days, e.g. the 339 hail events on the 1st July: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/120701_rpts.html
Even including the two tornadoes on the 15th that Richard Holle pointed out, it looks like the R period of the 13-15th July was weaker than one might expect for an R4. But given fair scrutiny of the weather observations, it’s definitely not a fail for timing of a large hail event (there is not large hail every day), or affected regions as you have been claiming.
I’m wondering if any posts will be done on WUWT showing the times Piers Corbyn has gotten it right?
This magnifying of things he has gotten wrong, or nearly right, is like “gotcha” journalism. And to read “my bad” when someone rightly points out an inaccuracy in this criticism of Corbyn’s work makes one feel disconcerted as to why this post scrutinizing him was even necessary. This is how Piers Corbyn makes a living. Would his critics like to have their livelihoods examined like this with such magnification of their errors? The MET, apparently, respects his work so much they wanted to stop losing money to him. Would there be any takers on wagers that pit his forecasts against ANY others forecasts?
One should never expect 100% accuracy in predicting anything in the future—unless it is Jesus doing the predicting. As Yogi Berra said, “Never make predictions, especially about the future”.
They started on the 28th
http://research.aerology.com/severe-weather/derecho-storm-seen-from-space/
made further mention about the occurrence here, with mention to the maps (click on name link) on my site;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/03/the-kevin-trenberth-seth-borenstein-aided-fact-free-folly-on-the-usa-heat-wave/#comment-1023880
“Finally, I don’t understand when you say
This whole packet of narrative forecasting is too hard to evaluate, so I just present the composite raw data from four cycles for others to draw conclusions about, it is a lot easier to evaluate detailed maps than narrative forecasts.
Where are you presenting it? What raw data? What am I missing?”
For the details of the how, why, what and when the data was gathered and processed see the about page; http://www.aerology.com/Home/About
I have posted to the internet daily forecast maps for a two year period from May 2012 till April 5th, of 2014, compiled from the composite of the raw data from four past analog periods when the sun/lunar declinational effects were about the same as the “forecast day” date of the selected maps to view, the data for the csv files they were made from were tabled back in Sept-December of 2008. So the lead time on all of these maps is in excess of four years, which should satisfy the “long lead forecast” criteria. I do not do narrative interpretations of the presented data for just the reasons you are calling Piers out on.
Where Piers method is very similar he approaches it from the solar activity and solar wind effects angle, which is very hard to predict longer than a couple of months. I look at it from the lunar declinational tides in the atmosphere which are much more predictable, but the injection of the solar variable effects are left out, so any strong effects show up as a transit passage of sudden impulses not seen in the past patterns, from this I am able to deduce which effects are solar out of the total noise and I learn things the standard method researchers cannot quantify. It is a great learning tool, and when I get enough data processed to add algorithms for the effects of solar impulses they “forecast” results will improve.
July 13-15, forecast for storms in the Dakotas and MN. There were storms during this forecast period, no tornadoes, no giant hail (although one report in Iowa had 2″ hail on the border of your threat zone), but there was hail of smaller size.
Piers, your forecast for storms was a hit, but you failed on the threat of tornadoes and on the hail size, too. Out east you did much better. You forecast storms with tornadoes and large hail. You hit with the storms and tornadoes, but not with the large hail. The PNW forecast was a hit as it was rainy with some storms.There were some storms in central and eastern WA and OR that made severe status, so you missed that aspect.
An honest assessment of these regions shows a mix of hits and misses. Good in the NE region and PNW, but poor in the N central. I base my assessment on the forecast details for the 13-15th you gave and the weather that happened and not on any day before or after these days with a rating of excellent (all right), good (mostly right), poor (mostly wrong), or fail (all wrong).
I would suggest when you forecast for svr wx, you use that wording just like the NWS uses. We know what that encompasses (hail and high winds) You can add the threat of tornadoes with that, too. Like “svr wx with the possibility of tornadoes” or “svr wx with tornadoes likely” depending on how strongly you feel about the tornadoes.
Rhys Jaggar says:
July 15, 2012 at 11:47 pm
Dr Eschenbach
If Her Britannic Majesty’s …
Clearly a corbyn fan boy, blind to objective criticism. Corbyn MAY be a little better than the met (we wont know because he doesn’t release old reports – presumably because they aren’t terribly accurate), but most of his successes aren’t successes, as clearly seen in these posts and seen personally when I did actually spend money and bought some of his reports (never again!). Furthur more, his obsessive self promotion ad nauseam, that is often at others peoples expense by talking them down is simply repugnent and hypocritical.
CO2sceptic says:
July 16, 2012 at 12:36 am
I have recently put together a proposal for a change to the way a dictionary describes the word “Eclipse”
Why not just use the english language as it is defined, instead of bastardising it. If Corbyn doesn’t mean the meaning of the word ‘eclipse’ then he shouldn’t use it, rather, he should explain exactly what he means.
WOW: Some confusion going on in regard to the word “Eclipse”, as my note implied, “There is more going on then shadows crossing”.
You have to move forward on this and take a closer look at what Piers is saying, if it was that simple it would have already been done, It hasn’t, and the Solar/Lunar method is all about the location/position of the Moon and Sun and what happens to the climate on Earth as a result of this influence.
Cheer up:)
In looking at the other regions that I didn’t cover in my previous comment, the forecast was not very good. The regions of the west, central, and southeast US experienced rain and thunder throughout the forecast period. The West has been experiencing its seasonal monsoons, Texas was wet, as well as the Southeast. I’d grade these as poor to fail. Your forecast for the US during the 13th-15th was poor overall. It seems you need a better grasp of the complex nature of US weather. Keep working at it, and better luck next time. Successful forecasts are great, but it’s the failures we learn from the best.
“July 16, 2012 AP: BEND, Ore. — Hours into their lawn-chair balloon flight, two men made a hard landing after they were hit by hail and snow as thunderstorms swept into central Oregon. But their back-yard aircraft floated away.”
One for Piers!
Piers 80% sure that the opening of the Olympics will have rain!
See much more in his latest forecast video
http://youtu.be/YKeKkmXXIlw
This man has courage, confidence and nice hair!
Lots of claims that Piers would go out of business if he wasn’t any good, but I see no evidence that this is a profit making business.
Piers also mentions MetO upgrading their warnings from yellow to amber. This isn’t necessarily a reflection of increase in weather severity Piers, the warning system is on a matrix so as the likelihood increases (as you get nearer to the event usually) the warning colour can change without there being any increase in the weather impact.
I notice Piers has added a new video on YouTube but, possibly because of all the “free speech” here, he has taken off all the comments on his previous video’s. Long live censorship hey Piers.
In the video he said that he has raised his confidence in July being the westest EWP in the 247 year record from 60% to 80/90% – The record is around 7 inches of rain (in 1828).
For this to happen we need the same amount of rain, we have already had,… again 🙁 🙁