"abraham" wrote in message
. uk...
The very old Jewish gentelman at the local shoe repair shop has said the
this winter will be a very bad one for England with much snow and sub zero
temperatures for long periods. How do you know I asked and he replied that
as he has been making / repairing shoes for 66 years he can tell by the
changes in the leather that he works with.
As this Gentelman is very trustworthy and makes the best quality shoesI have
no reason to not believe him.

I'm sure he does make high quality shoes but what on earth does that
have to do with his ability to forecast the weather?
What is it the leather *now* that can apparently predict the
weather some months ahead?
What evidence do you have from past winters that his forecasts are correct?
And if he has had sucesses, how do these measure up against the
failures, in order to determine whether these predictions are merely random?

I'm not meaning to be picky here, but this is a scientific newsgroup and
such questions will be asked in order to ascertain the validity of any
such claim.

My question that as far as long term forcasting is concerned, is his system
or any other none scientific one more reliable than a modern weather station
forcast.

At this range the shoe leather method may be just as good as anybody elses
The winter is still 4 months off and very broad forecasts continue to be
made that far out, regarding pattern matching of this year's weather
against past years and also looking at the North Atlantic Oscillation.
As to whether these methods works then unless one of the experts
here wishes to disagree then I would say that *sometimes* they seem to.......

Col
--
Bolton, Lancashire.
160m asl.
http://www.reddwarfer.btinternet.co.uk
http://www.reddwarfer.btinternet.co....rPictures.html