On Jun 5, 7:03*am, Teri McMillan wrote:
Dawlish, I always appreciate Will's view on his "possibility" outcomes when he looks ahead at any "interesting" weather features. He does NOT make forecasts, in my opinion, but will put out a "probability" outcome of unusual weather events. I for one, will always follow his "renegade" posts with great interest, as being a weather "extremist" myself, I like any sort of advanced warning of even an outside chance of an "unexpected" event. Sure, the "forecasts" often don't work out, but it is fascinating to see an "alternative" outcome from his perspective than just comparing 10 day futuristic ECMWF and GFS charts. With the increase in sea temperatures, I have been expecting the first fully fledged hurricane to come whipping up the East Atlantic, through the Azores and into the channel. They have come close, but not yet arrived. Our resident Dartmoor meteorologist will be the first to warn us that meteorological conditions are conducive for such activity....(if it happens)

Keep it up Will, and I will be the first to subscribe to your "private" weather site when you retire!

Mike McMillan

IOW

Still no rain..

Was that the same resident Dartmoor meteorologist that told us that
last Autumn would be very wet, due to exactly the same, ex-tropical
depressions, reason and got his Autumn forecast completely wrong,
because it never actually happened? *))

Anyone can say that Mike, but equally, anyone can get it wrong. I read
Will's forecasts with interest too, but I know full well that the
percentage attached to it is very subjective. The "great Dartmoor
blizzard" never happened this last winter, was highly unlikely to
happen, but the possibility of it happeneing reached 30% one week and
most weeks it was hanging around the edges of his forecast even up to
late January, when the cold had long gone from the south. It was a
hope. It's the weather Will lives for and he may quite possibly see
another "great Dartmoor blizzard" in his lifetime and you can bet your
life he'll have forecast it when it happens! The long-lasting spring
blocking was a "musing" remember, but it appears to have been a
forecast now. Will released seasonal forecasts up until the winter one
went spectacularly tits skyward within 10 days of being issued and he
(and everyone else) managed to completely miss the coldest December
for many years.

I could say that I think June will turn out wet because of the
emergence of the European monsoon and if June turned out to be wet, I
could then claim prescience and skill in dynamic forecasting. It
wouldn't have changed the fact that I'd have judged the outcome, based
on nothing else but an informed possibility and attached that possible
cause to it to look as if I really knew what I was talking about. If I
was correct and I had said that as a "forecast" instead of saying it
tongue-in-cheek, it would have looked a really incisive piece of
meteorology. However, the link between the European monsoon and any
given year being wetter in early summer is weak. The link between
blocking and AGW is even weaker and no-one is sure at all whether it
is happening, but it sounds good if someone links it, says it and gets
the weather predicted by that link correct, doesn't it? In spring,
Will said that the blocking would last through the spring (it didn't,
there was a clear hiatus for the last 3 weeks of May) and then June
onwards, it could turn wetter. Now the forecast is very different.
Either way, he's going to be right with one of those.

Blocking to Will is any anticyclone centred within 1000 miles of our
islands. With that definition, our weather is likely to be seriously
blocked for a long time to come, whatever is actually happening with
Atlantic depressions.

That's the way I think with any long-range forecast, not just Will's.
Anyone is welcome to forecast and anyone is welcome to champion a
forecaster, but forecasts are not judged on what they contain, but on
whether they are correct over time. If anyone wants to laud their own,
or someone else's forecasts, just supply us with the forecast outcome
accuracy over time that deserves that praise.