"TT" wrote in message
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| Will Hand wrote:
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| "TT" wrote in message
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http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...t_alltext.html
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| I know nothing :-)
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| Will
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| and seasonal lrf is gone too.
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The Met Office have done what I suggested a couple of weeks ago in a
discussion on seasonal forecasts here.
The seasonal forecast has gone where it belongs - it can now be found under
the "Science" tab, away from the "operational" forecasts.
All we need now is the other suggestion - that a "good until" date be given
to the monthly forecasts, based on the ensemble spread. Often in the last
few weeks it has been much less than 30 days. Once you see the ensembles
predicting surface pressures of anything between 990 hPa and 1030 hPa
depending on which slight "tweak" you use (as is the case for 15 March on
the current "spaghetti" [18Z GFS] for Hampshire on netweather.tv) then the
forecasts can surely not be dependable. Looking at this output, the "good
until" date for the GFS output is 11 March, but that still does not stop the
Met Office issuing a forecast out to the start of April - or is their model
considerably superior to the GFS?
Let's be honest about this - if the computer is saying "don't know", just
WHY are the forecasting authorities having a guess anyway and putting it up
on public websites as an operational forecast? This sort of thing can only
bring the forecasters' art/science into disrepute. Unless there is serious
reason for confidence in the 16-30 day forecast (and the ensembles I can see
suggest that currently there isn't), why put it up? If the Met Office want
to give it a go to see how it works out, all well and good but put it with
the seasonal forecasts in the "experimental" section. Either that, or be up
front about it with a form of words such as "We currently have confidence in
the detail of our forecast until about 11 March. Information after that
date is only an indication of the trend we think most likely."
It's a funny thing, but people respect you more if you are honest with them
rather than if you try to "flannel" them. Why not give it a try?
--
- Yokel -
"Yokel" posts via a spam-trap account which is not read.