Wouldn't it all become terribly boring? For me the uncertainty is part
of the enjoyment and fascination of our weather (and climate). I kind of
smile at the way myself and perhaps others have been drawn into the
elusive quest for certainty at longer range - but do you know what? I'd
prefer it remain an elusive hunt - just to keep us guessing and refining
our skills - or lack of it in my case!

OTOH if we ever did reach certainty at T240 I suppose we'd be wrangling
over T480!!

Just a thought to keep things in perspective ;-))

Cheers

James
--
James Brown

"James Brown" wrote in message
...
Wouldn't it all become terribly boring? For me the uncertainty is part of
the enjoyment and fascination of our weather (and climate). I kind of
smile at the way myself and perhaps others have been drawn into the
elusive quest for certainty at longer range - but do you know what? I'd
prefer it remain an elusive hunt - just to keep us guessing and refining
our skills - or lack of it in my case!

OTOH if we ever did reach certainty at T240 I suppose we'd be wrangling
over T480!!

Just a thought to keep things in perspective ;-))


Indeed, last night it was the elusive quest for certainty at T+2.

Jon.

In message , Jon O'Rourke
writes
"James Brown" wrote in message
...
Wouldn't it all become terribly boring? For me the uncertainty is
part of the enjoyment and fascination of our weather (and climate). I
kind of smile at the way myself and perhaps others have been drawn
into the elusive quest for certainty at longer range - but do you know
what? I'd prefer it remain an elusive hunt - just to keep us guessing
and refining our skills - or lack of it in my case!

OTOH if we ever did reach certainty at T240 I suppose we'd be
wrangling over T480!!

Just a thought to keep things in perspective ;-))


Indeed, last night it was the elusive quest for certainty at T+2.

Jon.

Wonderfully true Jon - if it all came down to perfect computer models
there would be an increase in unemployment - ooh a conspiracy theory has
come to mind - like the story of the man who invented the light bulb
that would never wear out, but was bought out by a company making light
bulbs. So to be clear, you are saying that there really isn't a 'holy
grail' that has been found but squirreled away by forecasters who rather
enjoy their work.... ;-))

Very BG

James


--
James Brown

On 19/02/2011 20:48, James Brown wrote:
In message , Jon O'Rourke
writes
"James Brown" wrote in message
...
Wouldn't it all become terribly boring? For me the uncertainty is
part of the enjoyment and fascination of our weather (and climate).
I kind of smile at the way myself and perhaps others have been drawn
into the elusive quest for certainty at longer range - but do you
know what? I'd prefer it remain an elusive hunt - just to keep us
guessing and refining our skills - or lack of it in my case!

OTOH if we ever did reach certainty at T240 I suppose we'd be
wrangling over T480!!

Just a thought to keep things in perspective ;-))


Indeed, last night it was the elusive quest for certainty at T+2.

Jon.

Wonderfully true Jon - if it all came down to perfect computer models
there would be an increase in unemployment - ooh a conspiracy theory
has come to mind - like the story of the man who invented the light
bulb that would never wear out, but was bought out by a company making
light bulbs. So to be clear, you are saying that there really isn't a
'holy grail' that has been found but squirreled away by forecasters
who rather enjoy their work.... ;-))

Very BG



As we have discussed before, the problem is not so much with the models
as with the information supplied to them - the observations. Under many
situations, the forecast outcome is extremely sensitive to these and
errors in the original conditions multiply as the forecast is run,
eventually making it no more than guesswork.

Whilst improvement in the models (or a particularly stable atmospheric
situation) may push back this "random guess" point, you can only go so
far before the limit becomes the quality of the input. AIUI, because
over much of the globe there are few observations, the forecasts are
actually started with a previous forecast output adjusted to match such
observations as we have together with satellite data such as winds
measured by radar / microwaves. This is known as "initialisation" (or
was when i was a meteorology student).

The practice of running "ensembles" is a way of determining how much the
forecasts are actually worth - the "tweaking" between the ensemble
members is intended to simulate the errors in the initial input fields.
Once the ensembles go all over the place, you know that "chaos" (in the
mathematical sense) has set in and you might as well cast the runes or
read the entrails as trust the model outputs.

--
- Yokel -

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

On Feb 19, 5:50*pm, James Brown
wrote:
Wouldn't it all become terribly boring? For me the uncertainty is part
of the enjoyment and fascination of our weather (and climate). I kind of
smile at the way myself and perhaps others have been drawn into the
elusive quest for certainty at longer range - but do you know what? I'd
prefer it remain an elusive hunt - just to keep us guessing and refining
our skills - or lack of it in my case!

OTOH if we ever did reach certainty at T240 I suppose we'd be wrangling
over T480!!

Just a thought to keep things in perspective ;-))

Cheers

James
--

Well it would be great for last minute holidays... imagine being able
to plan a trip to places like Snowdonia or the Highlands in the
knowledge that it was going to be fine.
On the other side of the coin it would be terribly depressing to know
for certain that the next two weekends were going to be washouts, on,
say, the Wednesday or Thursday of the first week.

Nick

On Feb 20, 1:26*pm, Nick wrote:
On Feb 19, 5:50*pm, James Brown

Well it would be great for last minute holidays... imagine being able
to plan a trip to places like Snowdonia or the Highlands in the
knowledge that it was going to be fine.
On the other side of the coin it would be terribly depressing to know
for certain that the next two weekends were going to be washouts, on,
say, the Wednesday or Thursday of the first week.


Ah, but if we could predict so far out so accurately, we would be
clever enough to control the weather, surely. Now what weather would
you like, sir? Scarey! Anyway I won't be around to see T+24 for
certain, thank goodness!
Ken
Copley, Teesdale

On Feb 20, 1:26*pm, Nick wrote:
On Feb 19, 5:50*pm, James Brown
wrote:





Wouldn't it all become terribly boring? For me the uncertainty is part
of the enjoyment and fascination of our weather (and climate). I kind of
smile at the way myself and perhaps others have been drawn into the
elusive quest for certainty at longer range - but do you know what? I'd
prefer it remain an elusive hunt - just to keep us guessing and refining
our skills - or lack of it in my case!

OTOH if we ever did reach certainty at T240 I suppose we'd be wrangling
over T480!!

Just a thought to keep things in perspective ;-))

Cheers

James
--

Well it would be great for last minute holidays... imagine being able
to plan a trip to places like Snowdonia or the Highlands in the
knowledge that it was going to be fine.
On the other side of the coin it would be terribly depressing to know
for certain that the next two weekends were going to be washouts, on,
say, the Wednesday or Thursday of the first week.

Nick- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

My point entirely. After the last 6 years of trying and *on occasions*
that's what I can do, with 75%+ accuracy. You'd just have to get lucky
that there was enough model consistency and agreement at the time you
wanted to go. If not; you ain't got a chance of getting a decent,
relaible, 10-day forecast from *anyone*, IMO.

Nick wrote:
On Feb 19, 5:50 pm, James Brown
wrote:
Wouldn't it all become terribly boring? For me the uncertainty is
part of the enjoyment and fascination of our weather (and climate).
I kind of smile at the way myself and perhaps others have been drawn
into the elusive quest for certainty at longer range - but do you
know what? I'd prefer it remain an elusive hunt - just to keep us
guessing and refining our skills - or lack of it in my case!

OTOH if we ever did reach certainty at T240 I suppose we'd be
wrangling over T480!!

Just a thought to keep things in perspective ;-))

Cheers

James
--

Well it would be great for last minute holidays... imagine being able
to plan a trip to places like Snowdonia or the Highlands in the
knowledge that it was going to be fine.

Imagine the crush of people and the traffic chaos if it was known
the weather was definately going to be good. Plus accomodation
prices would go up too.....

On the other side of the coin it would be terribly depressing to know
for certain that the next two weekends were going to be washouts, on,
say, the Wednesday or Thursday of the first week.

Imagine the joy of knowing that the next two weekends were
going to be glorious
--
Col

Bolton, Lancashire
160m asl

On Feb 19, 11:00*pm, Yokel wrote:
On 19/02/2011 20:48, James Brown wrote:





In message , Jon O'Rourke
writes
"James Brown" wrote in message
...
Wouldn't it all become terribly boring? For me the uncertainty is
part of the enjoyment and fascination of our weather (and climate).
I kind of smile at the way myself and perhaps others have been drawn
into the elusive quest for certainty at longer range - but do you
know what? I'd prefer it remain an elusive hunt - just to keep us
guessing and refining our skills - or lack of it in my case!

OTOH if we ever did reach certainty at T240 I suppose we'd be
wrangling *over T480!!

Just a thought to keep things in perspective ;-))

Indeed, last night it was the elusive quest for certainty at T+2.

Jon.

*Wonderfully true Jon - if it all came down to perfect computer models
there would be an increase in unemployment - ooh a conspiracy theory
has come to mind - like the story of the man who invented the light
bulb that would never wear out, but was bought out by a company making
light bulbs. So to be clear, you are saying that there really isn't a
'holy grail' that has been found but squirreled away by forecasters
who rather enjoy their work.... ;-))

Very BG

As we have discussed before, the problem is not so much with the models
as with the information supplied to them - the observations. *Under many
situations, the forecast outcome is extremely sensitive to these and
errors in the original conditions multiply as the forecast is run,
eventually making it no more than guesswork.

Whilst improvement in the models (or a particularly stable atmospheric
situation) may push back this "random guess" point, you can only go so
far before the limit becomes the quality of the input. *AIUI, because
over much of the globe there are few observations, the forecasts are
actually started with a previous forecast output adjusted to match such
observations as we have together with satellite data such as winds
measured by radar / microwaves. This is known as "initialisation" (or
was when i was a meteorology student).

The practice of running "ensembles" is a way of determining how much the
forecasts are actually worth - the "tweaking" between the ensemble
members is intended to simulate the errors in the initial input fields. *
Once the ensembles go all over the place, you know that "chaos" (in the
mathematical sense) has set in and you might as well cast the runes or
read the entrails as trust the model outputs.

--
- Yokel -

Yokel posts via a spam-trap account which is not read.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Isn't the real situation even worse than that? Even with
essentially "perfect" data, and from many more places than at present,
and with a "perfect" computer model the details of the circulation
will show total chaos after about 3-4 weeks, probably originating in
quantum effects and cascading upwards in scale. Certain persistent
features such as SST anomalies may make it likely that say high
pressure will be present over or near the UK but some theories seem to
indicate that whether the wind direction at Heathrow is east or west
is simply unknowable even in principle, beyond a probability
assessment.
I think we're a long way from approaching that limit with the
present state of the art for the reasons you give.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.

CLIP

Well it would be great for last minute holidays... imagine being able
to plan a trip to places like Snowdonia or the Highlands in the
knowledge that it was going to be fine.

Imagine the crush of people and the traffic chaos if it was known
the weather was definately going to be good. Plus accomodation
prices would go up too.....

Col

Quite

Personally I think forecasts are getting too accurate! Trouble is
people are already planning their week end away based on a belief in
the forecast. If they were 100% accurate virtually everyone would want
to go away for the same really sunny weekends, typically around 4 a
year! Apart from already mentioned total chaos on the roads, and the
problem of obtaining incredibly good value acommodation (
http://www.turnstone-cottage.co.uk/ ) it would be completely
impossible to park within 10 miles of your destination. When/if you
got where you want to be the pasties would have sold out and there
would be the most incredible queue at the bar, the stench of sun block
would be more vomit inducing than normal etc. .

You would miss the joys of trying to spot the good weather others
might miss, (like yesterday) having things largely to yourself on a
beautiful day because the forecast was rain, or thinking the surf
might be good having to sit above the beach with a pint instead
because it was flat.

I rather like the unpredictability of it all.

Graham
Penzance