Have to say that the current forecast on meto.gov.uk looks a little
more pessimistic than I would expect, particularly from the GFS chart
but even the Met Office's own chart. My interpretation of the GFS
chart for central southern England would be bright and warm for much
of the day, with light rain after about 7pm. Even the Met Office chart
would suggest to me only light/sporadic rain during daylight hours,
with pressure reasonably high at around 1016mb. Is there some other
factor here not evident on the pressure charts?

This Saturday I hold an annual outdoor event which almost always is
adversely affected by the weather (4 years out of 7 so far - the late
June Wimbledon/Glastonbury curse....) so if it happens again I think I
will move it permanently!

Nick

wrote in message
...
This Saturday I hold an annual outdoor event which almost always is
adversely affected by the weather (4 years out of 7 so far -
Nick

make that 5 years out of 7 - 2008 is your additional year - I guarantee it
Dave R

On Jun 19, 4:39*pm, "Dave R." wrote:
wrote in message

...

This Saturday I hold an annual outdoor event which almost always is
adversely affected by the weather (4 years out of 7 so far -
Nick

make that 5 years out of 7 - 2008 is your additional year - I guarantee it
Dave R

You are our little ray of sunshine, Dave! Surely you are having a
decent day today - 20C, a light Westerly and sunshine in West London?
Or don't you like to mention when you've actually had some decent
weather, as that would spoil your view that your weather is always
appalling? Ah! Silly me! I forgot about that little personal raincloud
that permanenly sits above your head! *))

Nick, I'd say it depends very much on how far the rain pushes North
during Saturday. I think it will probably rain on your parade, but I
wouldn't guarantee it and I hope it doesn't! What are you organising?

Paul

On Jun 19, 4:59 pm, Dawlish wrote:
On Jun 19, 4:39 pm, "Dave R." wrote:

wrote in message

...

This Saturday I hold an annual outdoor event which almost always is
adversely affected by the weather (4 years out of 7 so far -
Nick

make that 5 years out of 7 - 2008 is your additional year - I guarantee it
Dave R

You are our little ray of sunshine, Dave! Surely you are having a
decent day today - 20C, a light Westerly and sunshine in West London?
Or don't you like to mention when you've actually had some decent
weather, as that would spoil your view that your weather is always
appalling? Ah! Silly me! I forgot about that little personal raincloud
that permanenly sits above your head! *))

Nick, I'd say it depends very much on how far the rain pushes North
during Saturday. I think it will probably rain on your parade, but I
wouldn't guarantee it and I hope it doesn't! What are you organising?

Paul

A walk on the South Downs, can't believe how often the weather's
disrupted this event :-(

Nick

wrote in message
...
On Jun 19, 4:59 pm, Dawlish wrote:
On Jun 19, 4:39 pm, "Dave R." wrote:

wrote in message
You are our little ray of sunshine, Dave! Surely you are having a
decent day today - 20C, a light Westerly and sunshine in West London?

Light Westerly??? what the heck, its nearly blowin' a gale! No it is true,
it is a sunny day, but generally for only half of it did it start, after
midday the clouds got less before this there were heavy cumulus that looked
quite threatening and even then its a grossly windy day. I hardly count this
day as a "fine" weather day. Its just the -zone following a front which went
through last night - day. I'd describe the current situation as extremely
unsettled.
DaveR

I had high hopes for this weekend. Last Sunday it looked like a transient
ridge would pass over with warm air close by. Now the charts look like a
dartboard! While 2-3day forecasting has improved - the 5-6 day still gives
surprises.

Phil

wrote in message
...
Have to say that the current forecast on meto.gov.uk looks a little
more pessimistic than I would expect, particularly from the GFS chart
but even the Met Office's own chart. My interpretation of the GFS
chart for central southern England would be bright and warm for much
of the day, with light rain after about 7pm. Even the Met Office chart
would suggest to me only light/sporadic rain during daylight hours,
with pressure reasonably high at around 1016mb. Is there some other
factor here not evident on the pressure charts?

This Saturday I hold an annual outdoor event which almost always is
adversely affected by the weather (4 years out of 7 so far - the late
June Wimbledon/Glastonbury curse....) so if it happens again I think I
will move it permanently!

Nick

Well, the forecast for the SE issued this afternoon mentions "Cloud and
outbreaks of rain spreading northwards on Saturday" - and it may well be
that it brightens up in the afternoon.

Interesting to note the amount of press the GFS continues to get. While it's
routinely scrutinised by most forecasters it's far from being the best
model, both in terms of deterministic and ensemble output, at least in IMHO.
I guess the availability, frequent updates and generally good presentation
on the web have made it the model of choice for many.

Jon.

On Jun 19, 10:58*pm, "Jon O'Rourke" wrote:
wrote in message

...

Have to say that the current forecast on meto.gov.uk looks a little
more pessimistic than I would expect, particularly from the GFS chart
but even the Met Office's own chart. My interpretation of the GFS
chart for central southern England would be bright and warm for much
of the day, with light rain after about 7pm. Even the Met Office chart
would suggest to me only light/sporadic rain during daylight hours,
with pressure reasonably high at around 1016mb. Is there some other
factor here not evident on the pressure charts?

This Saturday I hold an annual outdoor event which almost always is
adversely affected by the weather (4 years out of 7 so far - the late
June Wimbledon/Glastonbury curse....) so if it happens again I think I
will move it permanently!

Nick

Well, the forecast for the SE issued this afternoon mentions "Cloud and
outbreaks of rain spreading northwards on Saturday" - and it may well be
that it brightens up in the afternoon.

Interesting to note the amount of press the GFS continues to get. While it's
routinely scrutinised by most forecasters it's far from being the best
model, both in terms of deterministic and ensemble output, at least in IMHO.
I guess the availability, frequent updates and generally good presentation
on the web have made it the model of choice for many.

Jon.

In my even more humble opinion, I agree about GFS but it is
seductive. Can you recommend a better one, apart from our own Met
Office?

Tudor Hughes

On Jun 19, 10:58*pm, "Jon O'Rourke" wrote:
wrote in message

...

Have to say that the current forecast on meto.gov.uk looks a little
more pessimistic than I would expect, particularly from the GFS chart
but even the Met Office's own chart. My interpretation of the GFS
chart for central southern England would be bright and warm for much
of the day, with light rain after about 7pm. Even the Met Office chart
would suggest to me only light/sporadic rain during daylight hours,
with pressure reasonably high at around 1016mb. Is there some other
factor here not evident on the pressure charts?

This Saturday I hold an annual outdoor event which almost always is
adversely affected by the weather (4 years out of 7 so far - the late
June Wimbledon/Glastonbury curse....) so if it happens again I think I
will move it permanently!

Nick

Well, the forecast for the SE issued this afternoon mentions "Cloud and
outbreaks of rain spreading northwards on Saturday" - and it may well be
that it brightens up in the afternoon.

Interesting to note the amount of press the GFS continues to get. While it's
routinely scrutinised by most forecasters it's far from being the best
model, both in terms of deterministic and ensemble output, at least in IMHO.
I guess the availability, frequent updates and generally good presentation
on the web have made it the model of choice for many.

Jon.

Jon, Tudor,

The only reasons I choose the gfs to use in my forecasting is that it
has output beyond T240 and output is produced 4 times a day. If
another model did the same, I'd use it and I agree with everything Jon
says. The NOAA comparison figures for the last month clearly show that
to 6 days.

5 days http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS/html/acz5.html
6 days http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS/html/acz6.html

Archives: http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS/STATS.html

The archives show the same. Tudor - the ECM model comes out as being
consistently the best. GFS and the UKMO model perform reasonably
equally over time at 5+6 days, perhaps the UKMO shades second place.

After 6 days, I feel that accuracy declines considerably and swiftly.
I do wish NASA would provide comparison figures for 10 days, but they
don't; so we have to speculate. I feel there would be little
difference and we'd be down well below 0.5, in terms of correlation -
towards "fairly weak" in correlation test terms. It's only a guess
though. At 10 days, I don't think any perform that well.

Paul

"Tudor Hughes" ...

In my even more humble opinion, I agree about GFS but it is
seductive. Can you recommend a better one, apart from our own Met
Office?


.... it's frustrating that, although it wouldn't exist were it not for
funding from the European taxpayer, the ECMWF products [ which have a
very limited public distribution ], are highly regarded (world-wide,
not just across Europe), consistently achieving the highest scores
when compared with such as MO, NCEP, Arpege, GME etc. I look at the
model he-

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php

Limited fields I'm afraid, but seem to be provided in a timely
fashion - twice per day.

Martin.


--
Martin Rowley
West Moors, East Dorset (UK): 17m (56ft) amsl
Lat: 50.82N Long: 01.88W
NGR: SU 082 023