On Jun 28, 4:11*pm, Richard Dixon wrote:
On 28 June, 15:36, Dawlish wrote:

It's the same pitch from you Richard. There were so many areas in
which storms were forecast yesterday and didn't happen.

I refer you to my earlier comment. The forecast was only ever for
isolated storms.





You admit, in
one sentence "Which is down to the basic difficult of forecasting the
situation which I get the impression you fail to grasp. Convective
storms were forecast to be isolated events yesterday, the MO didn't
have a full
grasp on where they were to form so what do you do? Issue nothing? No,
you issue warnings for where thunderstorms could happen
(unfortunately, the Kent example evaded their model)."

After saying in the previous; "Because I realise your view of
"outcomes" is far, far different from mine in weather forecasting.
Yesterday there were scattered severe *thunderstorms. Apart from the
Kent convergence line cock-up (that I pointed to in another thread)
that led to an amended warning, they did a pretty good job. In your
"outcome" book, they didn't as it was just a wishy-washy broad
warning. We have two entirely different points of view.

And?

I understand well the difficulties of forecasting in this situation.
At 12-36 hours it is impossible to forecast accurately on the 3
perameters I've mentioned and you have studiously ignored. Why not
admit to that instead of trying to defend such poor outcomes?

Yesterday wasn't a poor outcome, in my book. It two different points
of view again.

It would
be so good if the MetO did not "dumb down" the situation and treated
it's public, on this particular (note, particular) part of its site to
a lot more honesty. Why not say, outright "We know the difficulties of
forecasting this difficult situation, but we've produced the best
forecast we can. Some of you will get showers, some won't"? Then
explain in some detail why forecasting this kind of situation is so
difficult.

My semi colons separated (accurately - you can't have read Keats, or
Virginia Wolfe *)) *)

It's more from a "readability" point of view.

4 different, recent examples from just the SW
where 12-36 hour "flash" warnings were not correct (could any of those
4, well known and well discussed examples have been good forecasts, by
any outcome means that you could conjure from your "different"
viewpoint?)

I'd like to see the before, during and after before I take your word
for their incorrectness given you see yesterday's warnings as poor.
I'd like an impartial view rather than bee-in-bonnet view. Flash
warnings will cover an area. Same story - a severe thunderstorm cell
will not cover an entire county. People are always going to miss out.

From the point of view of the general public living in
those areas, or stuck in the snow on the A380, or A30 on that February
night, or were flooded out, or died in flash floods - and that's the
viewpoint that actually counts - they were not correct and the pretty
extreme outcomes were not as predicted in any of the "flash" warnings,
only 12 hours in advance.

Fair enough - if the forecast failed to miss a severe weather event
then slapped wrists all round but I will happily defend the MO for
issuing warnings when there is a broad-scale threat of severe weather.

I can't help thinking though that you'll always be right in your own
mind and discussions with you go round and round in circles, as a
couple of people have mentioned to me off-line. As before - on severe
weather warnings, we'll have to agree to disagree on their purpose and
extent - not that you'd let it lie of course, judging from your
discussions with Lawrence and Mr Weatherlawyer.

Richard- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Your last paragraph is disingenuous and show you have not understood
my supportive stance on the majority of things the Met Office does. In
addition, Why should anyone "let it lie", if they have no wish to?
That's usually the response from someone that is being asked a
difficult question and is struggling. The MetO forecasters are very
good, Reading your comments, one could be forgiven for thinking they
were infallible, or at least almost always correct. That plainly isn't
so. In the meantime, let's look in detail at the present weather
warning (see other thread). If it is good, as always, I'll be the
first to say so. If it is not, I hope your assessment will be a little
more objective than your implied support for some howlers of recently
missed (and actually real!) severe weather in the SW!

On Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:11:51 -0700 (PDT), Richard Dixon wrote in


I can't help thinking though that you'll always be right in your own
mind and discussions with you go round and round in circles, as a
couple of people have mentioned to me off-line.

I'll happily admit to being one of that couple, Rich. Your assessment is
quite correct and you're wasting your time "discussing" with someone who is
always right. Remember the mistake he made when he wrote:

"It was possible to sunbathe between 1200-1400hrs without getting
burned." on a cloudless day at the end of May.

He claims never to make personal attacks yet his subsequent, sometimes
quite nasty posts (e.g. I was a vulture roosting in self-proclaimed morally
high trees, JCW - I remember you well, Joe. I see you are still dropping
out of the trees like you always did!), seemed to convince *him* he hadn't
made an error and that the rest of us were those who were wrong.

Anyway, where I now have to live up at 18,000 feet trees don't even grow
g

--
Mike Tullett - Coleraine 55.13°N 6.69°W posted 28/06/2009 22:43:45 GMT