From Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPF
Questions Over Met Office Rain & Drought Predictions
The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier-than-average conditions for April-May-June as a whole, and also slightly favours April being the driest of the 3 months. With this forecast, the water resources situation in southern, eastern and central England is likely to deteriorate further during the April-May-June period… This forecast is based on information from observations, several numerical models and expert judgement. —Met Office 3-month Outlook, 23 March 2012
Seventeen counties in South West England and the Midlands have moved into official drought status, after two dry winters have left rivers and ground waters depleted. The news comes as the Environment Agency warned that the drought could last beyond Christmas. While rain over the spring and summer will help to water crops and gardens, it is unlikely to improve the underlying drought situation. —Environmental Agency, 16 April 2012
There’s evidence to say we are getting slightly more rain in total, but more importantly it may be falling in more intense bursts” — Julia Slingo, Met Office, 3 January 2013
The frequency of extreme rainfall in the UK may be increasing, according to analysis by the Met Office. Statistics show that days of particularly heavy rainfall have become more common since 1960. The analysis is still preliminary, but the apparent trend mirrors increases in extreme rain seen in other parts of the world. –Roger Harrabin, BBC News, 3 January 2013
In the wake of the “more rain and more intense rain” story, Doug Keenan sends this graph of England & Wales rainfall records for 1766-2012. Let’s just say the trend towards more rainfall is not obvious. As indeed is any trend towards less rainfall, which is said to be more likely by the UK Climate Impacts Programme. –Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 5 January 2013
Suddenly, after a wet year, which naturally the Met Office failed to forecast, they have reversed their customary fiery slogans to “Après nous le deluge”. Their antediluvian joy has given way to postdiluvian melancholy. They appear to have difficulty with the concept of random sequences of events, such as the precise positioning of the jet stream, and the fact that they produce apparent patterns and records. It was primitive man’s inability to envisage an effect without human cause that gave rise to much of religion. Of course it would have been most impressive if they had predicted all this a year ago, but they did not. Their predictions are as changeable as the weather and the only constant is the putative cause. –John Brignell, Number Watch, 3 January 2013
The Met Office continues to suffer from its recently acquired pretensions about climate. Careless remarks about BBQ summers and snowless winters and droughts in the UK have all been followed by Mother Nature failing to comply with their wishful thinking – the wishful bit being their hope that their faith in the power of CO2 in the system, or at least in computer models giving it a powerful effect, can be relied upon. –John Shade, Bishop Hill, 5 January 2013
My take on all this is that the alarmists are just getting desperate, spinning any weather and data to suit the CO2 thesis. Remember that the record annual rainfall for England is still less than the average annual rainfall for Scotland, hence if the average track of the jet stream is a little further south than usual then England gets a fair bit more rain. It has nothing to do with the alleged warmer atmosphere having more potential to store H20; if it was why did north-west Scotland have a drought in the spring and early summer? More bollocks from the Met Office. The UK weather and climate is determined by the track of the jet stream (and moderated by the Gulf Stream), and CO2 has feck all to do with it. –Lapogus, Bishop Hill, 5 January 2013
According to the UK Met Office “Historic Station Data”, the Met/BBC “greatest rainfall on record” scary story is based on 35 UK weather stations*. The earliest station data goes back to only 1853, and comes from only 2 stations, based at Oxford and Armagh. By 1914, only 7 stations had been added. The total of 35 stations have only been in operation since 1941 (probably prompted by the military requirements of WW2). *Note: 2 stations have been recently closed; Southampton, ceased operations in 2000 and Ringway (near Manchester), which only operated from 1946 to 2004.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/stationdata/
Paul Homewood says:
January 5, 2013 at 7:50 am
I’d forgotten that the Met forecast,in their 3 month outlook on 20th Nov, that rainfall would be below av for December.
Instead, Dec turned out the wettest month of the year.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/j/i/A3_plots-precip-DJF.pdf
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Indeed, the wettest month of a record-breakingly wet year in England.
Cue the picture of the London bus bearing the legend ‘We are in drought’ – in the pouring rain.
Let’s play “Spin the Climate Forcast Wheel”. It’s simply the permutation of the following words: Hotter, colder with drier, wetter with summer, winter. Let me see, next year will be….spin spin spin…”we have a winner!”
Hotter, wetter summer followed by a colder, drier winter.
If anyone wants the secret to my excellent predictions, it’s a combination of historical but heavily adjusted data, expert opinion, expensive computer models, and a shiny coin with heads and tails.
Unfortunately it is also picked up by the meeja – Tom Clarke the Science Editor of Channel 4 News in the UK has been in a frenzy about the Met Office summary of only ‘the second wettest year ever in the UK’ (ok, since records began, er relatively recently). Outrageous uncorrected porkies, like continuing ‘trend for warmth’ (no statistical warming for 16 years), or ‘predicted by the computer models’ (no graphs showing the IPCC failed predictions vs reality), and attribution, without any evidence whatsoever, of whatever warming there has been to human causes.
Mann oh Mann….wish I had taken that double-speak course way back when instead of engineering.
The assessments of the Met Office performance seems to be derived from any cases that embarrass the PM
It would be fun to compare the success of America’s full-year in advance weather forecasting publication called “The Farmer’s Almanac” [publishes its forecast for the year in January] and see how accurate they are compared to the Met in the UK. I would put money on OFA vs MET. I believe that all the Farmer’s Almanac forecasts are online.
Grumpy Old Man says: January 5, 2013 at 8:02 am “OK, this happened in 1944 and the Met Office didn’t have any computers, thank God. The only computer in the world sat at Bletchley Park having been invented by Turing and his associates and was used to decipher German codes.”
The Bletchley Park collection of vacuum tubes and diodes did its job far better than all of the Super ___ computers (fill in the blanks) combined are doing with the GCMs, etc. Or, perhaps, the Bletchley Park boffins were far better at defining the problem, the variables, etc. and writing code than the practitioners of climate voodoo.
Just over at Tallbloke’s blog, Met Office revises down its Global Temp Forecast
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/major-change-in-uk-met-office-global-warming-forecast/
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/long-range/decadal-fc
Is the worm turning?
Grumpy Old Man says:
January 5, 2013 at 8:02 am
>>
Come on chaps, the Met Office is not all bad. They did a spectacular job on June 5th when they predicted stormy conditions in the English Channel would abate for the next 24 hrs as a depression reversed its track and moved S.E. On this basis, Eisenhower launched the D Day landings in Normandy on the following day and the weather proved kind. The German Met Office had predicted continuing poor weather so Rommel (Normandy Commander) had taken time off and was well away from his post when the invasion started. In the rush to get back, a British fighter plane shot up his car and I believe he was slightly wounded which kept him from command at a crucial moment.
OK, this happened in 1944 and the Met Office didn’t have any computers, thank God. The only computer in the world sat at Bletchley Park having been invented by Turing and his associates and was used to decipher German codes.
>>
So, what you seem to be suggesting is that meteorologists can predict weather better than computers. The problem is they have all been decommissioned to pay for new computers that took their place.
Does the Meteorological Office still have anyone that knows how to predict weather rather than just rearranging computer output into human readable format? Sadly, this is not a phenomenon limited to the Met. Office. It is endemic in our society now. Incompetence is the rule , not the exception and it’s always the “fault” of the computer.
All complex societies seem to collapse for various reasons. Ours will probably implode once the last few old gits who know/knew how to do their job retire and die out.
I give it 50y max.
Better give them a Nobel Peace Prize real quick …. shore up the credibility gap !!!
Funny that ,since March, the Met were, month after month, forecasting drier than normal conditions.
Perhaps Julia forgot to tell her minions about her new theory!
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/slingo-pretends-she-knows-why-its-been-so-wet/#more-2226
Eventually they will get one right, then it will be….we told you so
The Met Office’s long term weather forecasts are in fact very skillful in a funny sort of way. For example if they forecast dryer conditions then expect wetter and if they forecast wetter then expect dryer. The people of the UK have been using this method years with a good rate of success. I suggest that subscribers to their seasonal forecasts do the same. It rarely fails. 😉
Forgive me if I ask yet again the blindingly obvious question: if they can’t accurately predict the weather three months out, why should we take predictions for fifty or one hundred years hence seriously?
If this kind of incompetence had occurred in private industry, these people would have been gone a long time ago. It’s time they stop pretending they know what they are doing. Their crystal ball is not working.
What do you expect from an outfit that had Robert Napier (ex WWF-UK Chief Executive) at its head for six years up to September 2012?
And indeed, John Houghton steering the ship 1983-1991?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240082/It-gigantic-supercomputer-1-500-staff-170m-year-budget-So-does-Met-Office-wrong.html4
Note that link is three years old!
Nice to see that our old chum ‘Sir’ Brian Hoskins is a non-executive Director:-
(Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, CBE, FRS is the Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College, London)
Nothing changes.
Coming soon:
“UK Met Office announces their most hopeless year of forecasting since records began – but spokesperson says only slightly worse than 2009 and 2010”.
Why is it that the Met Office’s failures increase with every expensive supercomputer replacement? Might it have something to do with built in bias against a certain trace gas?
OK I am getting confused. I was under the impression that the “Met Office” was the U.K.’s subsidized version of the US for profit “The Onion” over here.
The “Met Office” released written PR predictions were to be inverted by design. British High Comedy at its best. Monty Python or Blackadder like.
If, however, the “Met Office” isn’t subsidized comedy, I don’t know what to say.
Rainfall is not the only area where the Met O mislead !!!!!!!!!!
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/major-change-in-uk-met-office-global-warming-forecast/
MO sneak out new global lukewarming graph – no fanfare – I wonder why ?
Must check to see if it’s on BBC tonight…………………
/sark off
Paul Homewood says:
January 5, 2013 at 7:50 am
Cue the picture of the London bus bearing the legend ‘We are in drought’ – in the pouring rain.
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David L says:
January 5, 2013 at 8:52 am
Let’s play “Spin the Climate Forcast Wheel”.
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Two great images that say it all and I would not have seen them but for WUWT. I had the London bus “we are in drought” picture printed out and sat on my desk for a couple of weeks. Problem is, nobody gives a rat’s ass, apart from us, obviously.
I had a colleague say to me once: “oh, they’ll get their taxes anyway, whatever”. Apparently some people like being robbed, think it’s normal
I remember a met office spokesman being interviewed on tv – the presenter said to him –
” Historically you are more often wrong than right” to which the metman replied “Not true. We are right 49% of the time”
Nothing more to say is there?
Plain common sense says that since weather systems take 4 days or so to track across the Atlantic to the UK, trying to predict more than 4 days in advance is a pointless exercise.
And Now For The Weather forcast,
http://s446.beta.photobucket.com/user/bobclive/media/Spike2.mp4.html
As indeed is any trend towards less rainfall, which is said to be more likely by the UK Climate Impacts Programme
Lead by Richards Betts, he of blog fame. Director of climate impacts.