Willis on why Piers Corbyn claims such a high success rate

From Piers’ long-range forecast issued 3 weeks ago:
“JULY 20-23 […] Solar Factors: R3 ~20-21st; R2 ~23rd […] Turns colder near Vancouver. “ — p.8
…And today I have the heat turned on in the early afternoon. Never in my life can I remember ever feeling cold enough to turn on the heat on a July 20. Yesterday it was shorts & fans. Not today.
Piers has some aspects of the timing of circulation changes nailed. I suggest honest, competent judges & those of us struggling to catch up to him focus specifically on the timing of CHANGES in global-scale spatial pattern. The local details of circulatory-change fallout will be hopelessly beyond most of us (lurking-variable-dependent spatiotemporal paradox) UNTIL we at least (bare essential minimum for further progress) get a firm lock on the structure of the timing framework. When I investigate the COLLECTIVE impact of the event series Piers emphasizes, I get CLEAN solar-terrestrial coherence (see graphs I shared above). This is the power of Central Limit Theorem; Piers IS correct in the aggregate. Competing long-range forecasters could QUICKLY catch up to Piers if they abandoned oldschool “classical” spectral analysis methods in favor of variable-extent wavelets. Those with superior resources should be able to blow right past WeatherAction and leave it in their dust.
So far Piers’ long-range forecast has been correct without exception about circulation changes affecting Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Piers has even been correct about long-range detail ~85% of the time. (A competing weather service here had forecast an endless string of sun with no clouds — something that often happens here in summer. Their long-range forecasts have been wrong about 8 times out of 10 this year; this reveals the method they are using.)
Piers: I’ve had some discussions with locals about your work. Young ladies are interested in your forecasts to help them plan well-in-advance what to wear. I want to suggest that this could be a profitable market worldwide (although possibly also a very punishing & unforgiving one even if things go wrong 15% of the time) …Something to think about carefully. I know some very talented & affordable marketing people. Let me know (now or down the road) via private e-mail if this is something that might interest you as an avenue towards sales & revenue growth (…which becomes absolutely vital solar-terrestrial research money to circumvent our society’s severely corrupted research funding systems and help creatively compensate at a grass-roots-level for our society’s dependence on patently-hopelessly-incompetent leadership).
Best Regards.

@ur momisugly Edward Rising (July 21, 2012 at 6:01 am)
That’s a good trick — i.e. compare daytime high with average minimum (night).
27day / 1 year / 22 year
http://i46.tinypic.com/2qvwacn.png

Ok, the high yesterday was 18c., which was below average (23c) I grant you. Though as the minimum temp was higher than average and the maximum temp wasn’t that low and looking at the last 7 days there isn’t a clear dip in temperatures and the forecast (not Piers’) shows broadly average temperatures, I don’t think we can really say that it’s turning colder near Vancouver can we, honestly? http://www.weather.com/weather/pastweather/CAXX0518

Piers claims that he used to make significant sums of money betting on the weather but now can’t because the bookies have banned him due to his success. (Although there is no evidence to support this claim)
However, he may not be aware that there is a huge multi million dollar market in weather derivatives traded on the stock exchange. These are used by energy companies, farmers, the tourism industry etc. to hedge against lost revenue due to, for example a hotter or cooler than average month.
Read more about this market here. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/optioninvestor/05/052505.asp
If piers is as accurate as he claims, then this market seems to be the ideal way to verify the accuracy of his forecasts and also make him a very very rich man.
Since (as far as we know) piers is not trading in this market then either 1) he is not confident in the accuracy of his forecasts. Or 2) he’s simply not aware that these markets exist that would give him a way to gamble on the weather again and prove his accuracy.
If it’s the second then I wish him the best of luck and look forward to seeing his results.

Just for the record!
Deluges likely to hit Olympics start…
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews12No34.pdf

I get a kick out of these people trying to tell me what weather I’m experiencing (particularly when they equate climate & weather with only temperature — hint: HYDROLOGY). The weather here is bimodal. Cold downpour vs. hot sunny. We got the former. The “normals” are a joke since they represent a blend of 2 discrete states, each of which regularly gets stuck for weeks (or more). (sarc on) But don’t get me wrong gentlemen: debating whether 1+1=2 with you is a fine use of my time (/sarc off). http://i49.tinypic.com/2jg5tvr.png (from LOD via Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum, Central Limit Theorem, & Thermal Wind Relation) The graph should be a clue (CLT) as to why Piers wins money on weather bets. The level of discussion in this forum is really falling.

I have to agree with Edward, deciding to put the heat on is not scientific proof of a drop in temperature!

Paul V’..
“strongly nonuniform spatiotemporal pattern”.
In English Mira? How on earth is the casual reader supposed to understand that?
Or are you simply showing off your PhD’manship??
A doctor does not tell a woman that her husband has suffered a myocardial infarction.
He tells her that he has had a heart attackl!
I’ll bet that if I said that you were a grandiloquent ostentate, you would be fairly safe from the common man thinking ill of you. Minus 5 brownie points!
Martin Gordon..
I apologise for the 2011 blip in my research. I should have learned by now, never take a media date as being kosher until double checked. I thought it seemed odd the 80mph winds and all.
The link ‘at page top’ didn’t appear as a link until I checked today. Just appeared as a title.
The reason I am a little determined to find floods around the 16th to 20th is that I monitored the rainfall radar every day throughout that period and saw nothing but continued, indeed endless, rain in the form of very heavy prolonged showers and expected floods all over the UK. There were indeed reports of floods before and after but I’m struggling to find any for that specific time-frame.
Limited time but the search goes on. This information is rarely found on national media but rather local media, which, by it’s very nature, is a highly time consuming effort.
I may buy Piers forecasts but I still monitor them to gauge accuracy, sheerly for entertainment purposes. I am never disappointed. But then I treat them as a prediction of long range weather potentials, not as a physicists solution to Einsteins theorems! If you catch my drift? { : >)

tc says:
July 21, 2012 at 11:28 am
“Piers claims that he used to make significant sums of money betting on the weather but now can’t because the bookies have banned him due to his success. (Although there is no evidence to support this claim)…………..”
This statement that “…there is no evidence….” is lies and libel and I call on you, tc, to reveal your identity and you and the WUWT owners and organisers to withdraw and apologize for this untrue and gratuitously damaging statement. Please communicate with me directly piers@weatheraction.com as well as making a public withdrawal here. (NOTE I do not see everything here). Facts on this matter further below but first a general comment:-
It’s a sad day when someone on WUWT (in a comment allowed by the site owners) resorts to falsity (and this is not the first one here) in order to discredit what I am doing. It is equally sad that this happens when the CO2 warmists are making a ‘Custer’s last stand’ with their delusionism – and what are WE doing? (or have I misunderstood the ‘WE’?). I note Anthony after referring in ‘off scale’ terms to his BS meter (pointed at me) said that (or words to that effect) ‘As a fellow sceptic I should be treated fairly’. I would first note that this is not the way Willis treats our work but that apart I DO NOT AGREE that I ‘AS a fellow sceptic or AS ANYTHING should be treated fairly’. My views and choice of fonts have ZERO to do with the ABSOLUTE Necessity for what I say or rather give evidence of, or ANYONE says/evidences to be treated objectively and fairly. If Al Gore turned up here there should be fair discussion. Evidence based science is the only science. Opinion-science is non-science, Anthony (I will avoid quoting your meter); but the way you made that remark and what you have been DOING is problematic.
On evidence I want to thank among others, but just in the immediates above: Ulric, Agnostic, Richard Holle, Paul Vaughan, Russ. I am especially grateful to Paul V for direct reports on the NW. It has been hard to get the forecasts going there (our first USA efforts left it blank) and on dressing young ladies, well, never advise just say ‘yes’ but we are not a world operation yet – only covering from Vancouver to the Ural mountains.
The betting successes were reported on a BBC QED documentary in an interview with Graham Sharpe of William Hill special bets dept and confirmed on various occasions by journalistic enquirers to William Hill and most recently confirmed in some conversations by a third party when William Hill backed off taking 4/1 against bets re rain on Olympic ceremony 27 July when they heard I was involved off stage – mentioning I was £14,000 ahead when they closed my account.
Incidentally I didn’t hear from Willis as to whether he would take the bet that William Hill backed out-of. For information despite the MetO previous hopes for a fine start to the Olympics the standard models now agree with our 6 week ahead forecast that there would be a lot of rain around in England and Wales, including Southern England such as the Olympic stadium, on the day Friday 27th July. See:
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews12No34.pdf
There are some comment points of interest before the models changed on WeatherAction site see Readers comments and responses (me 20th July) at foot of:
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=472&c=5
Given what is forecast now I am not expecting you to take that bet now, Willis, but I am wondering what make-wrongs you will come up with re our forecast for England & Wales especially the SE and in particular the high risk of… (the Olympic ceremony). Here’s a short list:- “Rain but NO hail”, “thunderfloods but at Stratford (East London) centre not the stadium”, “thunderflashes, NO evidence we heard thunder but couldn’t see the flash” …. Ah and of course the hail wherever it might be it wasn’t measured so we don’t know if it was small, large, giant, enormous or in fact that spongy pseudo hail, so whole forecast ‘not verified’.
ON England & Wales FLOODS ~16-20th Media have been getting flood weary so dont do so many pics and you have to go local but I don’t have time however I did mention before that Environment Agency (Scotland separate) on 19th July there were 23 river Flood alerts and 10 warnings no longer in force (in last 24 hrs). I printed off the report because they get rubbed out and I’ve no idea if they are archived. Also:-
http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/local/9818925.More_floods_in_Worcestershire_but_events_go_ahead/ – a flood pic presumably on morning of 16th (given the way modern journo’s work) but might have been before, anyhow hell of a lot of water and it probably stayed around. The sheer amounts of rain also basically necessitated floods and we can get reports from insurance loss adjusters later anyway.
Piers Corbyn

1 more try….
@Piers:
This statement that “…there is no evidence….” is lies and libel and I call on you,
Piers, it’s the nature of the blogosphere that people will make unsubstantiated claims, or comments that are inflammatory, rude, or pointless. It is a waste of your time and ours for you to object to them, when a simple link or the context of a further argument is sufficient. The way you have objected comes across as advocating censorship or silencing of critics. Much of the objection to the way climate science has been conducted is the way it has objected to critics. Note that Michael Mann has done much the same thing recently against a publication describing his hockey-stick graphs as ‘fraudulent’. Don’t sound like you want to silence critics, use it as an opportunity to prove them wrong.
In that same vein, Willis, your chief critic here, comes from a determination to be equally skeptical toward anything – be it supporting CAGW, or skeptical of it. The quality of the data, the reproducibility, and the auditing of claims, all gets checked carefully, and after all why should you be measured by a different stick than he subjects mainstream climatology?
From the point of view of some here, including me, some of your claims look spurious. I maintain that it appears that you are able to determine weather characteristics pretty accurately, with varying accuracy in terms of space, time, and intensity, a long way in advance, that goes beyond the standard model of meteorology. If that is the case it means you have hit upon an understanding of weather and climate that is really significant and deserving of wider recognition, especially in the context of the CAGW debate.
But one of the problems standing in the way of that is really robust way to verify your forecasts, and for the forecasts themselves to contain enough detail with regards to uncertainty, so that properly skeptical observers can disentangle what your SLAT has detected within the chaotic and unpredictable nature of a weather event. One possible way might be to say as well what you definitely don’t expect maybe. I don’t know….
And you have to bear in mind that you are an interested party. You cannot possible be objective, because you have a commercial interest as well as a scientific one (and undoubtedly emotional as well!) in promoting your theory/technique. There is no way you can be unbiased, and therefore substantiating your claims is going to be much much tougher. The way to defeat your critics here is with relentless referral to evidence (3rd party that people can check), lots of links, and patient argument of your point. Expect a strong headwind, but the truth will eventually wear them down.
Why should you bother?
Because a lot of people do read this site, it is skeptical and critical, and if you can beat them here you can beat them anywhere.

I agree with Agnostic and Edward Rising..
I am willing to believe that Piers has hit on a new way of doing long term forecasting which has some value, what I object to are the spurious claims he makes regarding it’s accuracy, the hindcasting and cherry picking of good results, and the constant slagging off and attempts to discredit other forecasters. It smacks of immaturity and a lack of confidence in one’s own ability.
As I mentioned before, if Piers has made money in the past betting on the weather it stands to reason he should be able to do it again on the weather derivatives market. Markets are available on average monthly or seasonal temperatures (Piers forecast “Coldest May in 100 years” for example) and also Hurricane strength, again either for the entire hurricane season or for specific named storms. (Piers also claims to be able to predict damaging hurricanes)..
http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/weather/index.html
The way Piers publicises his successes implies a level of accuracy that he should be able to make money trading these contracts… Or if he can’t be bothered to do it himself there are many investment banks out there that would make him an incredibly rich man to have access to his forecasts..
As to my comment on the evidence of being banned from the bookies, I simply made that comment since I have not seen any evidence of this which was not attributed simply to Piers’ word that this was the case. If there are independent sources out there then I stand corrected.