(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.
1. I don’t accept that we should accept how the blogosphere is. Evidence-based science is a necessity.
2. The question of derivatives trading etc is far from simple. a) Its not like walking into a post office with the answer to the lottery and writing the numbers down – many things are required. b) you don’t know what we have been doing so MYOB, c) Our ATS whole season forecast season 2011 was for specifics and it was sent to Anthony and not produced in a bawdy manner and was useful to subscribers I understand. IF ANYONE WANTS IT EMAIL ME piers@weatheraction.com I would prefer that than get it from Anthony because then i will know who you are. d) it is not appropriate to say more.
3. I am still awaiting – I might have missed it nb I have an email – what ‘high’ success rate I am meant to have claimed? A success rate is meaningless without a chance rate (The ‘burn rate’ in insurance terms). If you place very narrow definitions of success then you get a low rate (Willis’ intention) which sounds ‘bad’ to the public. The public generally don’t understand statistics but they do understand gambling hence our use of it. Take a roulette wheel gambling on one number (chance success ~3%); being “WRONG 90% of the time” would be Willi’s report of us say, whereas such a rate is 3 times better than luck, clearly skilled and can make money until you get moved off the game!
Forecast users have a practical approach and farmers surveyed came up with ~85% success rate meaning that 85% of our forecast periods were basically helpful rather than not (the rate on the same criteria must now be higher, or kept the same by a more detail/hurdles). Our confidence levels on each time window are that sort of concept. We quote the success rates found by users and try to ascertain what they mean and what else they need to know. What we do say – because that has been independently demonstrated in an objective way – is we have statistically significant skill which translates into ability to make money (real or imaginary) on weather bets at fair odds as an example. Getting someone to bet against is another matter. Some points on this were in pdf of notes on winter 2010-11 notional bets:
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews11No6.pdf
The role and attitude of Philip Eden (mentioned in there) and Willis have some similarities.
Piers Corbyn
What I also find interesting is Piers’ clear desire to be taken seriously by the establishment and secure some funding…
In the olympics newsletter he mentions, “Will BBC & Govt give real science a chance?” and then goes into a rant about them not listening to his forecasts.
I would say that the BBC and the Government do listen to “Real Science” and in fact would probably listen to Piers if he applied “Real Science” and proved his results scientifically and not through the ambiguous methods that have been discussed at length in this thread. The government is not going to give him any funding without having some scientific evidence to back up his work first.
If Piers’ results are accurate then it shouldn’t be a problem to prove them as such scientifically. Once that happens people will actually start to pay attention to him rather than dismiss him as a crank, and he will get the funding and respect he desires.
If Piers’ results are accurate then it shouldn’t be a problem to prove them as such scientifically. Once that happens people will actually start to pay attention to him rather than dismiss him as a crank, and he will get the funding and respect he desires.
The problem is what “accurate” means. There is clearly some sort of accuracy – I mean to say, since I have been keeping an eye on his forecasts they have anecdotally been hand-wavily “about” 85ish% right. It’s pretty impressive at times.
But as I tried to stress to Willis, from the point of view of long-range forecasting, what you deem to be accurate has to be a complex interaction of spatio-temporal weather characterization from before initial conditions suggest a likely outcome and against the probability of the event being predicted by chance. It’s pretty subjective. Right and wrong doesn’t cut it. it’s going to be mostly right or mostly wrong some or most of the time.
Piers’ explanation of why “betting” makes more sense in terms of how to approach it. In this way, rather than say that any one event is right or wrong, you can take a view over time of whether the broad characteristics are right. It still means there has to be some sort of agreed parameters. If there were some way to agree to what they are and publish them, then you could probably have a fighting chance at assessing it’s success. I guess, critics should put their money where their mouths are: bet against Piers and see how well you do.
I have been working with the local farmers in my areas for over ten years, the ones who use my long term forecasts to plan planting times, and year to year crop rotation strategies, (dry land to be planted in corn, soy beans, or sorghum [Milo], or even just wheat, choices, depending on dry periods in the coming years) Have stopped having near as many losses, by planting lower water requiring crops instead, and are running in the black out of debt, instead of close to bankruptcy like they were before.
Later planted Milo has a better chance of producing a profit (although smaller than corn) if the corn crop would not make it through the past six weeks, decisions made based on their known experience with their own farms, has saved many a local farmer.
I have a friend who farms and does day trades in the commodities markets, he started out with a $20,000 buy in early May, has since taken out $120,000 from the profits to pay off short term farming based debt, and still has $600,000 in the portfolio, he calls it ‘playing with house money’ at this point.
I would rather see the front end producers getting the benefits, rather than the derivatives stock companies further sucking down the incomes of individuals when their current bubble pops.
Published in Telegraph on 23rd July 2012
“But the Met Office predicted that Friday’s opening ceremony might be hit with heavy showers after several days of dry conditions.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/9421110/London-2012-Olympics-UK-to-swelter-in-hotter-weather-than-Hawaii.html
Published in the Telegraph on 24th July 2012
“The first detailed weather forecast for Friday evening suggests it could remain dry in the Olympic Park in east London, when the filmmaker will present his £27million spectacular to the world.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/9422266/London-2012-Olympics-now-rain-may-need-to-be-faked-for-opening-ceremony.html
What a difference a day can make Willis try and pull this one to pieces as you did with Piers Corbyn’s forecast but you won’t because you just like knocking the little guy while leaving the bigger fish alone!
Piers Corbyn (@Piers_Corbyn) says:
July 22, 2012 at 9:09 pm
“I am especially grateful to Paul V for direct reports on the NW.”
You nailed the whole 20th-23rd window.
It was cold. The cold rains came – at times heavy – and it was more like late fall than summer. There was a brief bit of sun Saturday evening but it was still cold and there were still dense clouds out at sea & over the mountains.
Your forecast timing for early July was impeccable.
The only place you were off was in the magnitude of one mid-month regime shift, but what impressed me was that you nailed the timing of all the regime shifts. This is extremely useful.
A handle on the timing framework is the very highest priority and you very clearly demonstrated that you have that. Meanwhile Environment Canada’s 4-day forecast keeps changing every time I look (and you’ve done better with a forecast you made in June).
I would like to get very serious about helping you with the forecasting here. I also need to increase my computing power by orders of magnitude at this juncture because I’m developing exploratory methods that will go way beyond my current resources. If & when the political tide turns I will apply for funding. Until then my time & resources remain severely constrained and I remain restricted to contributing well below my potential. I’ll continue volunteering what I can, when I can, with what I have.
@Malcolm
Nobody has criticised anyone’s forecast. It’s the verification of forecasts that’s being questioned – and has been shown, with good reason.
Malcolm – saying “might be hit with heavy showers” or “could remain dry” are exactly the same forecast!
i must say that piers does stick his neck out by giving specific detail with his long range forecasts and that allows for a very close measurement of forecast accuracy. if, however, you review his forecasts with a wider “overview” he does quite well. i don’t know how to quantify it, but take a look at his usa july 24-28th forecast page and then go to the current usa “current weather” map from the weather channel site, specifically looking at the high and low pressure systems…..remarkably close! and, by the way, some of the details are right on for the northeast as well! i believe he also hit it the same way somewhere about the 18th or 19th.
Annoyingly, vukcevic posted the following in a brand new post on polar bears, even though the referenced forecast had absolutely nothing to do to with polar bears. If I were a moderator, I’d probably reject just about all OT comments made on posts less than a day old, and when there are perfectly good posts where such comments would be completely on topic I might reject all of them.
Excuse, time to get more coffee. I might be back once I get really cranked up. 🙂
vukcevic says:
July 27, 2012 at 1:48 am
Piers Corbyn got it right
Piers rain warning from 42 days ahead for the Olympics opening.
After one week of glorious sunshine and high temperature there was sporadic rain in London this morning.
Congratulations to Dr. Corbyn at Weatheraction.com
When I saw that WUWT was going to put Piers to the test for a month, I cringed for the very reason that we are seeing. For one thing you really have to read the reports. They come with a certainty figure. The meaning is that conditions will likely be right for the weather forecasted to happen. In the instance cited by Willis, apparently the weather people agreed on that day and that was the forecast. So it didn’t hail or rain. Piers cannot determine whether it will actually rain but he can predict whether it could likely happen. He commented in a post here that he “shines a lamp on the weather, not a laser”.
I have talked to Piers on several occasions about his claims being too enthusiastic on the positive side. He is aware of that. Part of the issue is the AGW crowd does not want him to be correct. He is somewhat defensive about that. He doesn’t want to be left too exposed. I understand his dilema but he should more fully explain how and by what degree he was correct as he occasionally does.
Piers does have skill in forecasting using his technique. The super snow storm that hit the midwest in March of 2008, he predicted a few weeks in advance at the Heartland Conference in NYC. He said it would be record breaking snowfall. He also predicted the path of the storm through the northeast including a line of sleet and freezing rain along the CT MA border. It all happened in the period he claimed and the location and the extent. The snow storms in the winter of 2009/2010 in the northeast were very un-normal but he predicted every one of them to the day and said they would be far worse than std meteorology would predict 1 to 2 days in advance. I had 4 feet of snow after the month of January was over which I hadn’t seen for at least 50 years. He predicted one at the end of January that went south of us. Right storm, wrong direction by a 100 miles.
I recall another prediction where he claimed a hurricane would form. Turned out to be a short lived tropical storm but the conditions were there to form a hurricane. I wrote Piers about it. A shearing wind came up and tore the top off of it. It was a chance thing beyond his ability to predict.
So pick on him all you want, he does have the skill. It is couched by a certainty, the conditions that could cause a certain event, and some events he does not mention because he does not have quite enough evidence to make a claim so things can happen and he makes no mention. In the end, Piers is just being Piers and that’s not all bad. He beats the crap out of who or whatever is in second place.
Another great example today of Piers version of verification. After another apocalyptic forecast of deluges, thunderflashes and hail disrupting the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games he is (predictably) declaring a triumph after a brief shower fell before the start of the ceremony.
The mendacity is compounded by declaring that the Met Office had “forecast NO rain 12 hours ahead”
The Met Office forecast issued 12 hours ahead ( http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2012/opening-ceremony-forecast ) stated:
“Although there will be showers through the day, these are likely to clear away through the evening. This will leave a mainly fine end to the day with just a low risk of a shower passing directly over the Stadium during the ceremony.”
I feel Piers has lost any credibility that he may have had. Very disappointing.
Martin Gordon
No that’s not necessarily so. MO hedged thier bets as the week progressed even up until yestreday aftrernoon they decided the potential showers which they’d hummed and ahed about the previous week, were over
Richard Holle says:
July 23, 2012 at 11:08 pm
I have been working with the local farmers in my areas for over ten years, the ones who use my long term forecasts to plan planting times,….
___________________________
Yes that is where you and Piers Corbyn’s forecasts really pay off. Farmers do not really care if the rain was on Tuesday instead of Friday, they only care that there IS RAIN and that there are no early fall frosts or late spring freezes to wipe out fruit buds or the ripening harvest.
On a different note stores want to know if there will be a big demand for raincoats or ski jackets are going to be the hot item. Towns want to know if they need to lay-in a large supply of sand and salt.
In all these cases pinpoint accuracy is not needed but what we do NOT NEED is the Met office saying children will not know what snow is before a very snowy winter or predicting droughts as the UK gets drown in “a bit of damp”
Well, we’ve seen the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics, and the Brits have done themselves proud … except for Piers Corbyn. He famously claimed that there would be “disruptive downpour etc.” for the Ceremony. Then he said a friend had tried to place a bet for him, but had been turned down when they figured out that Piers was behind the bet. So Piers asked if anyone wanted to bet him on the question, viz:
I said sure, I’d be glad to bet with him, he just needed to spell out how much rain, where, and when. I didn’t want him claiming that rain the next day was “close enough”, or that a quick shower was a “disruptive deluge”. I wanted to know how much rain he was predicting, where it would be measured, and what the time period was for the measurement.
I got no answer. So I repeated the offer.
I still got no answer. So I repeated it again.
I still got no answer. But when I repeated it again, Piers showed up all angry, like I’d been talking behind his back or something. He was all very definite about how I needed to apologize for “slur and innuendo” … but what he still neglected to do was provide the information about his prediction, as to what amount of rain, where it would fall, and when it would fall.
I pointed this out, and reiterated my willingness to bet …
I’ve gotten no answer since then, no further information.
Now, the event has come and gone. After weeks of rain, it was a beautiful day. To be sure, there was a short shower at around 8 PM, hardly a surprise in London in August, but hardly a “disruptive deluge” either, folks took it in stride and it was over quickly.
So Piers, your forecast was wrong, and I guess you were a wise man to avoid betting me on the question.
I bring this up for a couple of reasons. First, of course, is that I was right, there was no “disruptive deluge etc.”, that’s hard to pass by without comment.
Second, it shows the importance of accurate bounds on any forecast. I was not willing to bet on “disruptive downpours etc.” because I knew that any rain anywhere near the time and place of the Opening Ceremony would be claimed as a success … we’ve seen both Piers and his followers repeatedly claim that “close is good enough”. No, close is not good enough for a bet, either the forecast is right or it is wrong.
Third, I bring it up to show that when push came to shove, Piers was unwilling to bet on his very own forecast, which hardly inspires confidence.
There you have it folks, final score, Willis 1, Piers 0 …
w.
PS—Here’s a different statement about the forecast by Piers, emphasis mine:
80% sure? He wanted me to give him odds on the bet, and yet he was “80 per cent sure”? Me, I’m 80% sure you could get a better forecast for the Opening Ceremony by reading the tea leaves … and in the event, a light shower, no hail or thunder reported, in other words a complete and utter failure of Piers’ forecast.
If we use UKMO’s own criteria for bets on a white christmas then Piers did remarkably well-excellent in fact and would have won a bet if judged on this criteria -please see link.http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/16245847
Willis – this last comment from you is pretty ordinary. This doesn’t sound like a someone genuinely trying to find out whether Piers long range forecasting has any merit, it sounds like petty point scoring.
I live in London, and while I think you would have won the bet had you taken it…(and this I don’t understand, piers offered it way back, it looks like it was you who had not taken it up) I can assure you it would not have been by much. After an amazing and very hot and dry week, the very day of the opening ceremony was suddenly much colder and overcast, and it did rain….though not very much. No deluges, no thunder and no hail….you win the bet….but the change in the weather did occur.
You could dismiss this change in the weather as “tea-leaf” reading, or you can wonder at why the weather changed on time. 80% chance of disruptive rain and thunder….that isn’t the same as complete certainty is it? Do you think it means there is 4 chances in 5 of the exact weather conditions being matched, or do you perhaps think that 80% of the time, space and the characteristics should be matched? If its the latter then Piers gets a near miss, not a zero score!
If you want to engage in schoolyard nya nya nya-ing, then fine, carry on. Just say that you are absolutely not interested in finding out whether the SLAT system has any skill, and by extension a physical and statistically testable mechanism tying the earths climate to the sun and the moon. I think skeptical scrutiny would be really good thing to subject SLAT and weatheraction to, but this ain’t it.
A shame.
I don’t get it. To even forecast rain this week anywhere in the SE uK would have been some acheivment. I reiterate why doesn’t Willis take on ukmo who cost the uk taxpayer millions to issue tripe like this http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/i/A3-layout-precip-AMJ.pdf
The Stairway to Heaven…
annual heliomagnetic field polarity at solar cycle (Schwabe) timescale:
http://i50.tinypic.com/znvm1u.png
grey: phase anomaly
red: power
black: cumulative cycle length anomaly
data: http://www.leif.org/research/spolar.txt
Beyond shadow of doubt: 1970s terrestrial regime shift was of solar origin.
As I understand it, Piers had forecast a dire month of weather for the UK with no respite, (though I don’t have the detailed forecast for the UK and refuse to pay!). Presumably uk farmers would have wanted to know when the fine weather in July would occur so as to time their haymaking. Piers did not forecast the fine, warm and dry weather last week (the metoffice did). His original forecast (for rain pretty much all month) included the opening ceremony for which he forecast more rain and misery. He then went quiet as the weather improved and it looked less likely that his forecast of torrential rain on the day would come true (presumably why he refused to bet with Willis). Then the MetOffice forecast “the chance of heavy showers” on the Opening Ceremony day. Suddenly Piers was back with his “I told you so” arguments. Furthermore he bemoaned the fact that the Olympic officials did not take him seriously. Now let us imagine they had. His “forecast” was for heavy deluges of torrential rain with giant hail and thunderstorms. With his 85% accuracy rate, I think the organisers could quite possibly have caused national and international embarrassment by taking this forecast seriously and cancelling or massively amending the event (no helicopters, fireworks or boat – just some indoor flag waving perhaps?) Thankfully no-one took Piers seriously. Long may this remain the case.
Edward Rising (July 28, 2012 at 11:58 am) wrote:
“Piers did not forecast the fine, warm and dry weather last week (the metoffice did).”
Are you comparing a 1-month ahead long-range forecast with another 1-month ahead long-range forecast?
Or are you comparing a long-range forecast with a short-range forecast?
To be useful, a long-range forecast only has to do better than a random forecast & competitors on average. The challenge for productive forces is not to criticize but to DO BETTER. If you think one failure is too many in long-range forecasting, then pioneer a way to make no errors. That is how YOU can defeat the legendary Piers Corbyn.
+++1 to everything Edward Rising just said…
I find the wikipedia talk page on their Piers Corbyn entry interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Piers_Corbyn
The general theme is a lot of bluster from Piers and various claims made, but a failure to provide any evidence in many cases when asked. Also, no evidence on that bookies betting ban..
“Citable evidence needed: …
A source that confirms your betting history or ban with Hill Samuel. Every source I have, is essentially repeating your description. I’d like something that is not just your word on it – not because of trust, but because as a matter of policy we cannot take a persons word for it as evidence, in any article we have. – Found, though evidence of ban still needed.”
Piers’ Wiki page is the second result when you Google “Piers Corbyn” It’s massively in his interest that it backs up his claims on his methods. But he’s not been able to ensure that it does.
I am starting to realise that the key with Piers is of course that he only makes noise and looks for publicity when there is a decent chance of him being right. So he makes his alarmist forecasts (privately, to paying followers only) and waits.. as time moves on he looks at conventional meteorology model output and sees the ones that have a decent chance of coming off and starts making a lot of noise about how he forecast them a long time ago. Not surprisingly, some of them he hits, and some of them he “nearly” gets.
Of course what we never hear about are the ones that weren’t even close. the weather that would have been useful being missed. (Everyone would have loved to know this hot spell was coming a month ago, given the spring we’ve had, and as Edward said, Farmers especially, and also it’s come right at the start of school holidays.) and also false forecasts of armageddon and destructive weather that never materialise.
Now the Olympic organises didn’t listen to him, but of course they might have paid him some attention if he could actually demonstrate some science behind his claims. The best way of course would be submitting his methods to scrutiny. I understand that he is unwilling to do this because he says it would allow competitors to use them and destroy his business and livelihood.
But that’s not the case, if a peer reviewed journal published a paper which showed his methods had merit he would be assured of funding and be able to research developing his techniques even further. As I have mentioned many industries are sensitive to long range weather and the weather derivatives market is worth billions. Plenty of invenstment banks, insurers, energy companies etc. would be more than willing to throw some of that money piers’ way to get him on board for them and get the edge over their competitors.
The last option of course is releasing a few years worth of old forecasts (therefore not of current commercial value) for analysis regarding their accuracy. Of course there will be arguments about how best to verify their accuracy, but I don’t see the downside for piers here. Yes, some may pick them to pieces because he didn’t get “exactly” the right location or “exactly” the right time, but people are doing that anyway with the limited information he does release. However, it should be possible to demonstrate how consistently he gets the weather events right within a certain radius (50 miles or whatever) and a certain time frame (1-3 or 4 days) the majority of the time, and he (and his supporters) would be able to point to that as evidence of his abilities and then people might start paying attention to him. Again, the insurance or energy industries would likely make him a very rich man.
Given the huge upsides to publishing work regarding either his methods and/or their accuracy, it is telling that he refuses to.
@Tony Cole (July 28, 2012 at 1:37 pm)
Negativity & criticism accomplishes NOTHING. If you find that Piers Corbyn is failing 10% or 20% or whatever percent more of the time than you can tolerate, then the thing for you to do is pioneer superior methods. I see no evidence whatsoever that you or anyone else can do long range forecasting better than Piers Corbyn.
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/thread-1895.html
@ur momisugly Paul Vaughan
“Are you comparing a 1-month ahead long-range forecast with another 1-month ahead long-range forecast?
Or are you comparing a long-range forecast with a short-range forecast?”
I’m comparing an inaccurate forecast with an accurate forecast. It really doesn’t matter how “long-range” an inaccurate forecast is – it is still utterly useless.
“That is how YOU can defeat the legendary Piers Corbyn.”
There is no legend; just a myth.
Agnostic says:
July 28, 2012 at 11:03 am
This particular comment was about a particular bet. Why on earth would you think I was trying to find out about “long range forecasting”? Read my comment again, it is about a very specific bet that Piers offered and then backed out of. I discuss his long range forecasts elsewhere, like when he predicted seven, perhaps nine typhoons in July 2008 in the Central Pacific, and then he claimed long-range forecasting success when there were only two typhoons … perhaps you’d care to discuss that, I’d be happy to, but my recent comment was only was about the bet that Piers backed out of.
As to your claim regarding Piers bet, that I had “not taken it”, that is total nonsense. I offered four times to take his bet, and Piers wimped out. Are you claiming I should have offered five times? Because now that I think of it, at the end I offered again … so I did offer five times to take his bet.
And while I certainly would have won the bet, I don’t think I would have won it but “not by much”. He predicted thunderstorms, heavy rain, and hail would DISRUPT THE OPENING CEREMONY. The prediction was not that there would be bad weather the following day. It was not that there would be bad weather somewhere near London. It was that the weather would be bad enough to disrupt the Opening Ceremony itself.
In fact, his prediction of “disruptive deluges etc.” never happened. The Opening Ceremony was not disrupted at all, I watched it, it was fine except for one brief shower, not a deluge in sight. So no, he was not even close.
Finally, I am sick and tired of apologists like you saying Piers got it right and is a brilliant forecaster because something like what he predicted occurred somewhere not too far from where he predicted, at a time kinda near when he predicted. In the real world, that is called a “failed prediction”. Piers predicts fifty things, then he notes five things kinda like one or another of his predictions that are somewhere near in time and space to where and when he predicted, and then he declares success … sorry, but that won’t wash.
That’s why I wanted him to bet, and I suggest that’s why he backed out … because in a bet, either it happens or it doesn’t, and saying “but it happened the day before” just gets you laughed at.
w.