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Poor weather forecast.


JDog
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All of the weather forecasters gave today's weather in these parts as thick fog all day and it was no surprise then that the Estate where I was due to host a day's shooting called to cancel. The Estate is two miles from where I live but today dawned sunny and bright and it has remained that way all day. Pity.

 

Alternative exercise was called for so my wife and I decided to walk along the escarpment edge near Normanby Le Wold the highest point in the Lincolnshire Wolds. We had uninterrupted views over the flat lands and could see into Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.

 

Some may recognize the Golf Ball in the picture.

 

DSC07502_zpsoj3tel0s.jpg

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awful thing to erect in our beautiful landscape.....

 

i believe it is the English version of the American S.E.T.I. search for extra terrestial intelligence

 

the English version is S.E.T.I.L.....................search for extra testicle in lincolnshire

 

 

...................................

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awful thing to erect in our beautiful landscape.....

 

i believe it is the English version of the American S.E.T.I. search for extra terrestial intelligence

 

the English version is S.E.T.I.L.....................search for extra testicle in lincolnshire

 

 

...................................

Perhaps that should install one at the Houses of Parliament to see if it can find TERRESTRIAL intelligence! Edited by Lord Geordie
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The irony is that the fog today in my area was supposed to be gone by 9am, to be replaced by a sunny day.

Its now 1.10pm and its just been getting thicker, there is probably a sun up there somewhere, but I can't see it.

 

Its quite amazing that they can't forecast accurately for the next 24 hours.

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Its quite amazing that they can't forecast accurately for the next 24 hours.

 

At face value it does seem like this is a reasonable thing to say, but it is really an injustice to the forecasters.

 

It is an incredibly complex science especially so when it comes to accurate predictions of precipitation (snow especially) and things like fog to a given locality, more so in the UK where we have a huge continental landmass influence to our east and an equally huge ocean to our west. In the grand scheme of things and when talking about weather systems the UK is a small part of a big world.

 

The storm Barbara system that struck the north west just before Christmas was about the same size as western Europe and was a hugely complex mix of colder dryer air and moist warmer air and all of this mixing both horizontally and vertically. A really chaotic fluid system.

 

So if you consider the complexity and scale of what is happening in the atmosphere, especially if it is a particularly complex hemispheric setup as it is just now, being able to predict what the weather will be for a town or even a county with the accuracy that the forecasters manage is an awesome feat. It is akin to accurately predicting where the needle will be in a haystack.

 

The forecasted themes will almost always be largely correct within 72 hours at a macro level, even if very localised differences exist at a micro level, and accuracy drops off thereafter of course in terms of deterministic synoptic predictions, but there is still a remarkable level of accuracy, relatively, in terms of a broad theme out to 10-15 days.

 

The Met Office are pretty much always in the top 2 or 3 in the world for forecast accuracy, it is a genuinely world class organisation.

 

It is frustrating when they get it wrong however.

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It seems the more computers the Met office gets the worst they have become in forecasting the weather. With luck they may get 50% right in my area , we have been promised serious rain on a numbers of days over the past month, all we have had is a little drizzel and most days dry. With the flashes almost dry we are still waiting for it. . On my last shooting day they predicted strong north wind with rain and overcast conditions. The day was calm with a slight south wind, dry with sun from dawn to dusk. Give me a bit of dry seaweed hanging behind the back door any time.

Edited by anser2
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The irony is that the fog today in my area was supposed to be gone by 9am, to be replaced by a sunny day.

Its now 1.10pm and its just been getting thicker, there is probably a sun up there somewhere, but I can't see it.

 

Its quite amazing that they can't forecast accurately for the next 24 hours.

 

 

Aaaahhhh ha.......they can predict global warming very well tho....

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It makes me a little sad and frustrated when people slag off the Met Office without any appreciation of the phenomenal science behind a forecast. The Met Office is a fantastic British organisation with world class scientists.

 

The 4 day forecast accuracy is now the same as the 1 day forecast accuracy of the 80's. That is a staggering increase.

 

In order to work out the 2-5 day forecast, using a 40sq km grid resolution, every 15 minutes of weather requires about 160,000,000 calculations to happen. So to forecast 60 mins of weather for the length and breadth of the UK needs 640,000,000 calculations. To put that into context if one calculation took 1 sec that would need 20 years worth of sums.

 

To work out the 0-48hr weather the number of sums increase 2.5 times as the resolution is increased. So to give everyone in the country their forecast for 1 hour that needs 1,600,000,000 sums and of course multiply that 48 times for the 2 days worth, so circa 77 billion calculations. For context again if 1 calculation takes 1 sec that would be 2,310 years worth of sums just for the 2 day weather forecast for the UK.

 

Just as well they have supercomputers that can do sums really quickly otherwise we would rely on seaweed hanging behind the back door.

 

Of course all of that is a mathematical output based on equations for fluid and thermo dynamics. There are a whole team of people who then interpret that to translate into what the smiley weather person on the tv says or the app on your phone or whatever.

 

I am entirely certain this post will not stop anybody moaning about the forecast being wrong, but hopefully it might make some actually consider just what is involved and that we largely take for granted.

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