On 16 Oct, 13:26, "Philip Eden" philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote:
"Richard Dixon" wrote in message

ups.com...

On 16 Oct, 09:52, "Alan Murphy" wrote:

Interesting thing was that on the lunchtime news
he explained, at some length, that he was referring
to Florida when he made the the 'no hurricane'
remark. On the evening news this explanation was
not forthcoming. Perhaps the BBC did not like the
idea of him publicly impugning their integrity :-)

Fish was also cut off mid-sentence - after the "don't worry, there
isn't" - he also says that we are expecting some very windy weather. I
think it was an error on Fish's part to expect the nation to
distinguish between a hurricane and an extratropical storm. Giles in
my mind was more palpable 6 hours before it happened, if we're looking
into shooting the messenger! I get the impression that Giles v Fish at
the London Weather Centre was a battle of egos given some of their
responses in recent days regarding the incident.

LOL ... I think Bill has always been palpable ... I think you meant
'culpable', or perhaps 'palpably culpable! ...

Having gone through the two reports (MO and Swinnerton-Dyer ...
internal and independent respectively) with a fine-toothed comb
when they came out in 1988, and reminded myself with a rapid
re-reading just now, it's amusing to see how the various
protagonists have gently spun there own stories. And after the
hundreds of retellings they have undoubtedly come to believe their
own spin. Nor should anyone feel sorry for them ... they've lived
off that event for twenty years.

The one I feel sorry for is the chap who was chief forecaster
at Bracknell on the 15th and who was responsible
(with others) for the guidance supplied to Giles, Fish, and
co, including the chap who did the midnight forecast on R4
whose name for the moment escapes me. That chief
forecaster's name never came out, thanks to an excellent closing
of ranks, for his name was attached to the guidance which went
out to dozens of individual users, and I'm not about to reveal it now.
I rather suspect that, if the events were replayed today, his name
would have escaped into the wild before you could say 'cheese'.
However, he soon disappeared from the bench ... whether by
his own volition or pushed by others I have no idea.

Philip

I worked with the Chief Forecaster concerned a few years before. I
have to say I had very little confidence in his ability as a
forecaster......