On 8 Jan, 20:36, "Keith(Southend)" wrote:
While I was sitting here surfing the 15 minute radar and satellite
animations, I was just thinking how much information we have at our
fingertips. Never before have I been able to predict a snow shower with
such accuracy or even have a better feel for detail when the forecast
warns for snow in the East or SE. For years I used to look east and just
hope, but have absolutely no idea if it was going to snow or not.

Then we have all this model data, sometimes we drown in it, but I hope
this data never gets abused to the point were we don't get a look in.

How ever did we survive without the internet, eh?
--
Keith (Southend)http://www.southendweather.net
e-mail: kreh at southendweather dot net

Yes, every TV forecast and frequent checks of Ceefax (still remember
the page numbers... 401 for the national maps, 402 for WeatherEye, 403
for the outlook and ITV's Oracle - I remember when they changed to
Noble Denton and then OceanRoutes. I used to convince myself that I
lived either further east, west, north or south whenever the forecast
charts "rain / snow line" was close to my neck of the woods.
Anyone remember the forecast after News Review on BBC2 on a Saturday
night? - frequently better than the weather after Farming /
CountryFile on Sunday because it was just Bill Giles / John Kettley /
Bernard Davey in a Christmas-type sweater sitting by a TV monitor and
taking you through the "European pressure field charts" right up to
the next Saturday.
I remember even writing to Michael Fish one year just asking him "When
is it going to snow?"

"Scott W" wrote in message
...
On 8 Jan, 20:36, "Keith(Southend)" wrote:
While I was sitting here surfing the 15 minute radar and satellite
animations, I was just thinking how much information we have at our
fingertips. Never before have I been able to predict a snow shower with
such accuracy or even have a better feel for detail when the forecast
warns for snow in the East or SE. For years I used to look east and just
hope, but have absolutely no idea if it was going to snow or not.

Then we have all this model data, sometimes we drown in it, but I hope
this data never gets abused to the point were we don't get a look in.

How ever did we survive without the internet, eh?
--
Keith (Southend)http://www.southendweather.net
e-mail: kreh at southendweather dot net

Yes, every TV forecast and frequent checks of Ceefax (still remember
the page numbers... 401 for the national maps, 402 for WeatherEye, 403
for the outlook and ITV's Oracle - I remember when they changed to
Noble Denton and then OceanRoutes. I used to convince myself that I
lived either further east, west, north or south whenever the forecast
charts "rain / snow line" was close to my neck of the woods.
Anyone remember the forecast after News Review on BBC2 on a Saturday
night? - frequently better than the weather after Farming /
CountryFile on Sunday because it was just Bill Giles / John Kettley /
Bernard Davey in a Christmas-type sweater sitting by a TV monitor and
taking you through the "European pressure field charts" right up to
the next Saturday.
I remember even writing to Michael Fish one year just asking him "When
is it going to snow?"



Writing to Michael Fish? Oh Scott.........you as well;-)

"Keith(Southend)" wrote in message
...
| While I was sitting here surfing the 15 minute radar and satellite
| animations, I was just thinking how much information we have at our
| fingertips. Never before have I been able to predict a snow shower with
| such accuracy or even have a better feel for detail when the forecast
| warns for snow in the East or SE. For years I used to look east and just
| hope, but have absolutely no idea if it was going to snow or not.
|
| Then we have all this model data, sometimes we drown in it, but I hope
| this data never gets abused to the point were we don't get a look in.
|
| How ever did we survive without the internet, eh?

I studied for a Physics/Meteorology degree at the University of Reading in
the 1970s. This was then - as it still is now - one of the premier
Meteorology Departments in the world. I can still remember the thrill of
standing by the massive MuFax machine watching the latest charts gradually
appear. We gave presentations with hand-plotted charts (anyone else on this
group go there and remember the weekly "current weather discssion". Do they
still have something similar now and, if not, when did it cease?) and
submitted programs for the mainframe computer which were done on punched
cards and we got printed output the next day.

The information I can get in a few minutes on my home computer via the
Internet would have been beyond the wildest dreams of us university students
then.

And the winters *were* colder too. We had two winters of the four I was
there comparable in severity to the current "cold spell" (it will have to
run a couple more weeks yet before those who can remember more than 20 years
back will call it a "winter") during which Whiteknights Lake froze and
walking around the campus on the ice covered concrete paths was an exercise
in balance and co-ordination.

Some people on this group have been rabbiting on about global warming or
otherwise, but they need to remember that the temperature difference between
a mild and cold winter at these latitudes is considerably more than the
current global warming signal is claimed to be. One interesting take on
this by one poster in this group is that warming at high latitudes in the
Arctic could disrupt the polar vortex and hence our usual westerly flow so
there is nothing to say that global warming could not cause an increase in
the number of episodes such as now without any need to invoke the "Atlantic
Conveyor" shutdown.
--
- Yokel -

"Yokel" posts via a spam-trap account which is not read.