On Wed, 24 Feb 2016 02:11:19 -0800 (PST), Desperate Dan
wrote:

As far as I know the few "forecasters"
left in the MetO all have degrees.

There are still a few of the older, outstation forecasters, without a degree, but not many. The problem with the "new entry" of forecasting and admin staff is that they have no understanding of the basics. In the old days, the majority of staff started as observers, or at least had some observing experience. They did part of their training at out stations and probably ended up as outstation forecasters where they were very closely "in touch" with the real weather. There's nothing that concentrates the mind better than a DATCO breathing down your neck when he's trying to recover aircraft in deteriorating weather! Today, trying to get senior staff to understand the importance of maintaining standards in basic observing is a difficult task, especially when it means spending money. With proper observers a thing of the past you only have to look at some of the obs from the few manned outstations left, where observing is undertaken by degree entry forecasters, to see the lack of
understanding of actual weather. You old observers out there will all have come across forecasters who put pressure on observers to make the actual fit the Taf. You now have forecasters doing the actuals!


I've told this story before, but it's worth repeating.

When I was an Assistant at Prestwick Airport in the early 1960s the forecasters
on shift were usually one SXO (the Senior Forecaster) and two XOs. Most of these
had come up through the ranks and had been 'around the block' a few times. They
were 'experienced' forecasters. At that time the new graduate SO forecasters
were being introduced who had no grounding as observers and had little
'hands-on' experience. One of these 'new breed' of forecasters came onto the
Senior Forecaster roster at Prestwick.

The primary working charts at Prestwick in those days were 3-hourly European
charts and 6-hourly Atlantic charts, all hand-plotted of course. During periods
of 'interesting' weather hourly British Isles charts were also plotted. These
didn't extend as far as the Weather Ship locations so it was standard practice
to plot the OBS from 'India' and 'Juliette' somewhere in the left-hand margin of
the chart. On one occasion, early in his time at Prestwick, this graduate SO
forecaster analysed the latest British Isles chart. This had the obs from
'India' and 'Juliette' plotted very close together, one above the other in the
left-hand margin. He diligently fitted the pressures at the plots for 'India'
and 'Juliette' to his analysis and ended up with about a 250 knot westerly
gradient just west of the British Isles. This didn't seem to surprise him!

'Education' isn't all done in the university lecture room. It needs to include a
bit of experience as well.

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.
http://peakdistrictweather.org