On Jan 16, 5:26*pm, Natsman wrote:
On 16 Jan, 15:29, Dawlish wrote:





On Jan 16, 2:19*pm, "Colin Youngs" wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8462890.stm

Colin Youngs
Brussels

Just read it Colin; you beat me to posting it. *))

This is a very balanced piece. I agree with most of it, though at
times, it mixes seasonal and annual forecasting, which are two
actually two very different things. In terms of seasonal forecasting,
I believe they should either abandon it, or explain the experimental
nature of the forecasts and the likelihood that they may not prove
correct, far better than they presently do.

Even with the MetO's difficulties in forecasting seasonal weather
correctly, they are as good as, or better than eveyone else, except
using hindcasting odds. If anyone feels they are not, then present us
with the longer-term forecast accuracy of the person, or organisation,
you think is better. That's all you have to do. At least the MetO are
prepared to discuss their track record and don't hide it, whilst
basing their "expertise" on a few remembered successful forecasts and
forgetting the rest. They all count. They really do.

The real difficulty is that, IMO, *no-one* can forecast seasonal
weather with confidence which is backed by outcome forecast accuracy
stats. If there is; show us, don't just bleat about the MetO not being
able to do it when no-one else can. It's an area at the edge of
possibility. It's not something from which MetO accuracy should be
expected.

This from Biased BBC:

"...I asked, last week, how long it would be before the intrepid Roger
Harrabin came up with a defence of the Met office, after his Yorkshire-
based colleague, Paul Hudson, dared to suggest that Accuweather's Joe
*******i (among others) was more accurate with his weather-forecasting
than the Met and its £170m global warming lying machine (aka a
supercomputer). Well, it's taken him all week. And if you can
understand his back-flipping, contortionist - nay, fantastical -
reasoning, you deserve a prize. As I see it, our friend Mr Harrabin
believes that when the Met Office is wrong, they are actually right,
because they are nearly right; and that in any case, it doesn't
matter, because it's getting much hotter, and their supercomputer can
see that, whereas the day-to-day incidences of freezing etc, don't
really count because they are part of the 'frying tonight' overall
trend - and on that, of course, the Met Office is always right. As for
those who doubt any of this, well, according to Mr Harrabin, he
doesn't give a damn, because they don't count, and of course, they
can't count (unlike the Met). Something like that. Me? I'll stick with
Mr *******i. His writing style might not be the most elegant, but his
message is crystal clear and honest. The Met Office are warmist
crooks..."

Fair comment, I think.

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Foercasting prowess *has* to be backed by outcomes. Joe Bastadi got
all 4 of his USA winter forecasts wrong between 2004/5 and 2008/9. The
MetO didn't get all 4 of our winter forecasts wrong during this time.
So who issued the better forecasts? Is a forecast good because it's
message is "crystal clear and honest", or is a forecast good because
it ends up correct?

I don't think the MetO's seasonal forecasts are anything like good
enough to trust, but the evidence is that nobody else's is good enough
to trust.

If Joe *******i's (or anyone's) forecasts, are better, all you have to
do is to present longer-term evidence that they are and not rely on
his most recent one - which is only half way towards outcome and
already contains significant errors.