On Monday, February 11, 2013 10:44:11 AM UTC, John Hall wrote:
In article ,

Dave Cornwell writes:

The thing I don't get is why ruin what was an excellent actual

forecast for most with warnings that are exaggerated. It was

marginal, it did snow where and when they said it would but to

quote what I said yesterday on here :-"I think they don't really

need to act as concerned as they are though, because surely even

if they get the regions and amounts wrong nowhere is going to see

disruption for long? It isn't really going to be that cold in

subsequent days is it? "

To me it is the warnings that are always the weak point.



I suspect it's partly a legacy of the October 1987 Great Storm, when

their failure to forecast its severity led to a tremendous amount of

criticism in the media. They probably feel that it's safer to err on the

side of too many warnings than too few. And nowadays they may have a

worry that they could even be sued if they fail to forecast a hazard.



To be fair, the wording of the warning did emphasis that any "serious"

snow would be very patchy. It was clearly a case where it was very

marginal. But I think a lot of the people only look at the maps and

never read the accompanying text.

--

John Hall



"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong."

Oscar Wilde

Exactly right, IMO.

There were the usual rampers about this (or was it just ramper, on here?) who talked about widespread snow and the MetO being worried about a snowy February, but I think they can be..........safely ignored. *)) February from now on does not look particularly snowy and in the great scheme of things, is unlikely to be viewed as particularly snowy. The nutbar who talked about "blizzardy", I just shake my head at and giggle. He's right to talk up Corbyn's forecasts. It's an excellent way of portaying Piers as the idiot that he is.