By Paul Homewood
Following release of provisional rainfall data for the UK, showing that 2012 has been one of the wettest on record, Professor Julia Slingo, chief scientist at the Met Office, tells us
“The trend towards more extreme rainfall events is one we are seeing around the world, in countries such as India and China, and now potentially here in the UK”, adding that “the long-term trend towards wetter weather is likely to continue as global air temperatures rise. “
Leaving aside the fact that the Met Office have also been warning us about droughts lately, let’s take a look at some of the forecasts they were making during 2012.
Each month they issue a 3-month outlook. Unfortunately the ones issued prior to September have disappeared from their archives, but I had already saved the April-June, and also the Sep-Nov forecasts. Along with the Oct-Dec ones, what were the Met forecasting as the year progressed?
On 23rd March, they predicted “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.”
RESULT – RAINFALL TOTALS WERE 176%, 94% AND 203% OF NORMAL IN APRIL, MAY AND JUNE RESPECTIVELY.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/i/A3-layout-precip-AMJ.pdf
On 24th August, their forecast for September “weakly favours below normal values”.
RESULT – RAINFALL WAS 117% OF NORMAL IN SEPTEMBER.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/i/e/A3-plots-precip-SON.pdf
On 21st September, they said “For UK-averaged rainfall the predicted probabilities favour below normal rainfall during October. For the period October-November-December as a whole the range of forecasts also favours lower than average rainfall”
RESULT – RAINFALL WAS 101% OF NORMAL IN OCTOBER.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/h/g/A3-plots-precip-OND.pdf
On 24th October, they forecast “Predictions for UK-mean precipitation for both November and the November-December-January period are similar to climatology”
RESULT – RAINFALL WAS 111% OF NORMAL IN NOVEMBER.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/q/6/A3-plots-precip-NDJ.pdf
And on 20th November, “Predictions for UK-mean precipitation for December show a slight shift towards below-normal values – consistent with negative North Atlantic Oscillation conditions”
RESULT – RAINFALL WAS 150% OF NORMAL IN DECEMBER.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/j/i/A3_plots-precip-DJF.pdf
So for the seven months between April and December, that forecasts are available for, the Met Office forecast drier than normal conditions in six, and normal in the seventh. They failed to get any month correct, and for the seven months in question, rainfall averaged 36% above normal levels, (which are based on 1981-2010.)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomalygraphs/2012/2012_Rainfall_Anomaly_1981-2010.gif
It is very kind of Julia to tell us now that she knew all along it was likely to be wetter. It is just a pity, though, that she forgot to tell us at the time.
It must take genius to get it wrong 90% of the time when you always have a 50-50 chance of getting it right.
Joseph Bastardi says:
January 6, 2013 at 6:18 am
We live in the real world – though few presenting their CACA theism will admit it – and in the real world, “global warming” is MEASURED this month right at 1/5 of one degree C. MEASURE the last few months, the satellites tell us “global warming” was 1/4 of one degree C. Measure a little before that, you get 1/3 of one degree. (Hmmmn. Temps going down., Maybe the storms are caused by global cooling? Maybe the storms are measuring global cooling? /sarchasm – that gaping hole between a liberal and the truth. )
Storms and rain and hurricanes also “live” in the immediate, right now, “real World” of today’s temperatures and humidity and jet streams and “global warming” … Somebody’s CACA fears of a 4 or 5 degree rise in global temperatures in 100 years or 1000 years CANNOT affect today’s weather and today’s storms.
So, if the Met’s propaganda (er, storms) are affected by the real world temperature change from 1970 of 1/4 of one degree rise, then they MUST have have even more storms and rains and snow in 1998’s 1/2 of one degree one-year “pulse” of global warming, right?
Snow and rain MUST have been so extreme in 1998 that everybody … er .. . did just fine.
Hmmmn.
Each forecast must be accompanied by the appropriate retro-cast record of previous casts. As American baseball is a game of statistics that has produced insights beyond the mere game, so should forecasting allow clear sight.
Also, what Mr. Bastardi is too modest to say is that he has been predicting for some weeks now that a major stratospheric warmup would lead to a lot of people getting pretty cold soon, and that the mainline models and weather blogs are only now coming into line with his thinking. Well done Joe.
http://www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-january-5-2013
My prediction is within 50 comments some well meaning alarmists will degrade WUWT and other comment makers over this story. On average they will reply 3 times each.and either site very old scientific papers or none at all.
75 % will miss this comment as it takes time for alarmist sites to direct attention to here. However 90 % may be referred to this comment and as little as 10 % will ever see it on their own
In summery zero to 100 % negative feedback to this comment will prove that the alarmist position has been decided in the past and refuses to look at ever changing evidence .
If I am wrong I will make new predictions over 75 . 100 and 125. comments from now.
And now that they are predicting wetter conditions I predict there will be drier conditions. The MET is actually very accurate if you apply a 180o phase shift.
Joseph Bastardi says:
January 6, 2013 at 6:18 am
The UK ‘government’ is currently spending £18 Billion ( $28.8 Billion ) every year to meet self imposed targets on ‘green energy’ such as windfarms. This is to address the ‘catastrophic’ threat of climate change (!?). The effect of this spending is to force large numbers of the population into fuel poverty.
(Quarter of households ‘face fuel poverty’ as incomes stagnate and energy bills soar
More than 5m households spend over 10% of income on energy
Ministers under increasing pressure to abandon green targets
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bills/article-2069395/Quarter-households-face-fuel-poverty-incomes-stagnate-energy-bills-soar.html
300,000 more homes in fuel poverty
Some 300,000 more homes are likely to have been pushed into “fuel poverty” by Christmas amid soaring energy prices, an advisory body warned today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/9749412/300000-more-homes-in-fuel-poverty.html )
So the politicians need the met office to keep shrieking about ‘catastrophic climate change’ regardless of the evidence – and they fund the Met Office. So every type of weather is ‘talked up’ into catastrophe and the cause is always ‘climate change’ (as even the least attentive of the electorate have cottoned on that global warming isn’t happening – it has to be climate change). This puts the government servants at the Met Office into increasingly difficult and contorted positions as we have seen with drought turning to floods. So while I can understand the amazement at the lack of skill in their forecasting it does not surprise me. What does surprise me is the willingness of forecasters to risk professional reputations to save the backsides of the politicians.
If Hubert Lamb [knew] what was going on with the MO he would turn in his grave, these people now in charge are looking in the wrong direction, they are relying on the future being controlled mainly by Co2, and that this will tell them everything about where the climate is going, Co2 is leading them to the wrong conclusions. This is becoming more apparent day by day. Lamb’s legacy is that the past has all the clues to the future, until they rediscover this, they will continue to get it wrong time and time again, A proverb my mother taught me was “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” and is still true today. I had great respect for the Met Office once, now I am just sad about the whole shambles it now is.
Keith Gordon
Occasionally the Met Office mentions the Jet Stream, the movement of which causes the type of weather we get in the UK. As the Met Office cannot predict the movements of the Jet Stream, its forecasts beyond 5 days are worse than guesses. Piers Corbyn gets it right much more than 50% of the time because he doesn’t use a model driven by carbon dioxide.
joated says:
January 6, 2013 at 6:00 am
The Met office needs a new dart board. The one they have now is obviously faulty
It’s the bent darts that need changing.
Slingo, the forecaster that got stuck at London airport on her way to Cacun for the climate conference jolly due to ………………………………….. heavy snow.
These pillocks are laughable. I feel really sorry for the brits. £137 / an for this crap. Oh and Betts thinks I’M RUDE.
The Met Office’s weather predictions remind me of those people who select their national lottery numbers based on previous patterns.
Keith Gordon says:
January 6, 2013 at 7:36 am
If Hubert Lamb [knew] what was going on with the MO he would turn in his grave
He does know or knew. Just before his death he commented on the destruction of his beloved unit by ……… Jones et al. He knew what they were up as we all do now.
Lamb was a genuine weather scientist and a good man.
Andy says:
January 6, 2013 at 7:15 am
Just predict like the Met off. ‘within the range of 0 to 1000 at 70% confidence. 🙂
So let’s get this established: The Met’s short-term computer models are unreliable, but their long-term computer models are reliable?
The Met decad forecast of November 2010 can be found at http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/decadal-prediction
Joe Bastardi, I would love to see you, Anthony or anyone else debate with Julia Sllngo, unfortunately it is not going to happen for the following reason “the science is settled” and the reasons for that are:
1) No-one would dare they would admit that they are wrong. That goes for all the “scientists”, civil servants, windmill builders, the EU and eco freaks who get loads of cash from it. The British government may have a way out of it if they can claim they were duped and given bad advice in the first place.
2) The BBC and the other left wing propagands machines have it stitched up. I read the paper and listen to the news, but the first I heard of the snow and severe cold in China and Asia, was here. The BBC weather forecast plays down any weather events that may let viewers/listeners question AGW. “It will be exceptionally MILD!” is what we have had over the last few days on the radio, with an emphasis on the word MILD.
3) The fact that the general population do not question that an increase in CO2 of 9/100,000 is going to be cataclysmic, shows the lamentable state of science teaching in this country.
4) There is a general apathy about AGW.
To finish on a lighter note, I have copied my post from an earlier item about the Met Office, it seems to be more appropriate here:
“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
That reminds me of Eric Morecambe’s reply to Andre Previn when questioned about his piano playing. “They are the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”
The met office is instructed to lie to the public about its long term forecasts.
Simple truth is, that this globe is cooling and oceans give warmth to the athmosphere with lot of moist in it. It rains down somewhere.
noaaprogrammer says:
January 6, 2013 at 8:00 am
So let’s get this established: The Met’s short-term computer models are unreliable, but their long-term computer models are reliable?
From their website they use the same model for short and long-term global and local weather.
The UKV model – Kilometre-scale forecasting over the UK with the Unified Model
the Met Office runs a version of the Unified Model over the UK with a grid length of 1.5 km usually referred to as the UKV. Examples of weather phenomena that require such a model include fog filling valleys, enhanced rain over mountains and higher temperatures in cities. However, the main benefit is to better resolve convective showers or storms which, in extreme cases, can give rise to major flooding events or disruptive snow in winter.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/ukv
UK weather forecasters can predict cold winter weather a season ahead with more confidence, according to analysis of a new computer model.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19584302
Weather forecasting really hasn’t gotten any better in the last 3 years, in spite of what we’re told. Just watch your local forecasts. Pick a day 5 days out, and then watch that day as it gets closer. It will change. Which means the 5 day forecast isn’t as good as the one-day forecast from 30 years ago, as I saw from a MET office quote a few days back (haven’t been able to find it again).
Sure, with sat images and doppler radar, they can tell you everywhere it’s raining. But those clouds coming in off the coast could dissipate in 12 hours, or get thicker, they just don’t know.
Sports predictors and astrologers got nothin’ on the error rate of weather forecasters.
Oops, my previous post “hasn’t gotten any better in the last 3 years” should be “30 years”, not “3”.
Slingo says
“the long-term trend towards wetter weather is likely to continue as global air temperatures rise. “
Henry says
the actual reason as to why a certain latitude band get more clouds and more rains is due to global cooling.
All data sets now show we are globally cooling
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend
for explanation you can follow discussion here
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
noaaprogrammer says:
January 6, 2013 at 8:00 am
So let’s get this established: The Met’s short-term computer models are unreliable, but their long-term computer models are reliable?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Naaaah,
The Met is a political stooge. All they put out is propaganda with a possible very short range accurate forecast.
Everything else is window dressing for “The Message” (Mankind is EVIL and must pay carbon indulgences to the priesthood)
Joe B: Please don’t waste your time. Your knowledge is not effective when the other side is unable to understand real science; or even to listen to logic. You’ll get faith answers to unasked questions and vicious moderator attempts to throw sham simplities at the larger audience.
Speaking of science; surely the Met can base their change in faith upon some pal published research? Perhaps an English BBC subsidizer can FOI them for their references and all communications regarding same? Hopefully without having to watch the BBC spend lots of hard earned British tax money on fighting science transparency?
This wet year in the UK has had nothing to do with rising temps and everything to do with the jet stream pushing southward and largely staying there. The Met Office just need to look at there own temperature charts for 2012 and they will see that for 7 month’s of the year temps were at or below average. As l’ve said before since 2007 the trend has been for the jet to move southwards during the summer, the difference this year was that it happened in April and stayed mostly like that for the rest of the year. How the Met Office can claim this southward movement of the jet will lead to warming is beyond me. lt just makes them sound bloody clueless.