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Old February 15th 11, 06:35 PM posted to uk.sci.weather
Col Col is offline
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First recorded activity by Weather-Banter: Jul 2003
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Default Forecast: mild, Atlantic weather at 10 days on 24th Feb.

Richard Dixon wrote:
On Feb 15, 10:11 am, Dave Cornwell wrote:

Nevertheless real forecasters don't have the luxury of missing out
days that are "difficult" as there is an expectation upon them,
hence the occasional poor forecasts.


I've tried saying this in the past. His statistics are not a like-for-
like comparison with any forecasting house statistics. Find me a
forecasting centre that forecasts when it feels like and maybe then a
comparison is worthwhile !! Dressing up a small proportion of
forecasting days when the wind's in the right direction as having 70+%
accuracy is entirely misleading, as far as I'm concerned - heck maybe
I'm wrong.


Nothing that Dawlish hasn't always been open about of course.
What would be interesting though is not so much the % accuracy but
the % number of days the forecast is attempted. And that can't
be very many, perhaps once every 1-2 months by my reckoning.
Keep maintaining that accuracy rate, whilst increasing the frequency
of forecasts would be more impressive.

If you don't like calling it a forecast then it's an indication of
inter-model correlation at 10 days. Interesting as an excercise
but a world away from being a 'real' forecaster who has to take
a judgment call on the tricky stuff as well. But I'm sure Dawlish
has always acknowledged that.
--
Col

Bolton, Lancashire
160m asl