top4718 Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 ....a complete waste of time and money. What is the point of an organisation that cost millions yet cannot predict the weather for more than a few short hours in advance. The hurricanes of '87, the "barbecue" summer of 2010, snow in October 2011, all glaring mistakes by this bunch of incompetant (and probably highly paid) idiots. As an experiment pick a part of the country and follow the forecast for the preceding seven days, it will change daily right up until the weather actually "happens" and then be correct, useless. In my area today rain has been forecast all week, the result.......not one drop. Get rid and spend the money on summat useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melthebell Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 like to see you predict it better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinfoilhat Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 In fairness in 1987 michael fish did say straight after "there won't be a hurricane" "there will be severe gales". That said they are a bit rubbish. They cant, or couldn't last year, predict how much snow we get. Could be an inch or a foot they're non the wiser. There's a storm surge heading to Norfolk tonight. When was the warning issued ? Tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
top4718 Posted November 27, 2011 Author Share Posted November 27, 2011 like to see you predict it better Give me the money they get annually and i'll have about the same percentage of guesses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyofborg Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 was it a forecast from the met office? there are other organisations out there which do forecasts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 In fairness in 1987 michael fish did say straight after "there won't be a hurricane" "there will be severe gales". That said they are a bit rubbish. They cant, or couldn't last year, predict how much snow we get. It's physically impossible to predict weather more than four days in advance. The weather system is chaotic; if you measure wind speed with an error of 1 bilionth of one billionth of one billionth of a inch per hour, your forecast for next Sunday will be just as much wrong as if you hadn't bothered measuring anything. The Met Office deals in statistical probabilities, useful for insurance purposes, in long-range forecasting. They don't even claim to produce actual forecasts, and they get annoyed when the media report that they have done and then gloat about it having been wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinfoilhat Posted November 28, 2011 Share Posted November 28, 2011 I should have clarified. Let's say it's going to snow on Tuesday (it's not !don't panic !) they'll say it's snowing on Tuesday but they can't say whether it will 3 inches or 18 inches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
top4718 Posted November 28, 2011 Author Share Posted November 28, 2011 I should have clarified. Let's say it's going to snow on Tuesday (it's not !don't panic !) they'll say it's snowing on Tuesday but they can't say whether it will 3 inches or 18 inches. Fair comment, but to have the total inability to predict anything with any accuracy for more than (say) 6 hours is a total waste of resources. As I said earlier heavy rain was predicted for today from about Tuesday last week, what does today bring.....dry with clear blue skies!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcoblog Posted November 28, 2011 Share Posted November 28, 2011 To be honest, I think the forecasters do a pretty good job of getting the 'big' bits of weather ight ... 'Frost in Scotland', 'Rain in the SE', 'Sunny intervals in the Midlands' etc, over a period of days. Trying to be more specific (to a city or town) must be incredibly complex ... things like hills can change local wind systems, a bit of sunshine can cause thermals which will pull bits of weather in from the sides etc. I guess the computations to be accurate to a local area must be akin to throwing a red tennis ball into a rotating barrel of white ones (representing the Midlands, say) and predicting its path through them. Although the red ball will still be in the 'Midlands', it's pretty impossible to know where it'll end up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandad.Malky Posted November 28, 2011 Share Posted November 28, 2011 ....Get rid and spend the money on summat useful. Like trying to predict what weather patterns will be like in decades to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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