On Mon, 2 Dec 2013 18:10:58 -0000
"Col" wrote:

Dawlish wrote:
On Sunday, December 1, 2013 11:01:58 AM UTC, John Hall wrote:
In industrial Castleford it was appalling. Not fog, but nasty
smelling smog, which necessitated scarves around one's mouth to
attempt to strain the pollution out of it. I remember it very well,
though I was very young. My parents were not able to get home to
Pontefract on Christmas Eve 1962 and us all had to stay with an
aunt and uncle. Only one prezzie on Christmas morning wasn't fun!
Santa didn't know where I was and delivered them to Pontefract, of
course!

If you stood in the middle of a 5m wide pavement, you could see
neither the road, nor the walls of the terraces, the smog was that
thick. The bus conductors were hanging out of the bus calling the
distance from the kerb to the driver - before they stopped running,
of course, leaying us stranded! We had great difficulty finding our
way only 200m along the pavement to our relations' flat in that fog.
By far the worst I've ever known and thank goodness we don't see the
like of it any more.

From a meteorological point of view it would be fascinating to
experience, but beyond that it's just as well we don't get such
conditions anymore. It must have been highly unpleasant even for
the fit & healthy, but of course deadly for the old & vulnerable.
Thousands of 'excess deaths', but this is what the Clean Air Act
was introduced to tackle and now thankfully those days are long gone.

The first really bad fog I've known would have been in about 1950 when
I would have been about 6 years old. I think we were probably let off
early from school and I walked home, keeping close to the garden
fences. Visibility was similar to what you describe, Col, in that I
couldn't see the pavement kerb from the fence and, when I had to cross
a road, I could see nothing when I was in the middle. That was in
Rushden where the houses mostly burned coal. However, sometime around
1970, I witnessed two fogs in the smokeless zone of Bracknell that
were of similar density, with visibility of only a couple of metres; if
I drove near the kerb so my passenger could guide me by following the
kerb, I was unable to see the central road markings or cats-eyes.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks. Mail: 'newsman' not 'newsboy'.
'Don't let old age put you off starting complicated jigsaws. If you
don't finish, it will give guests something fun to do at your funeral.'
- Bridget&Joan's Diary.

On Saturday, November 30, 2013 2:02:04 PM UTC, Scott W wrote:
I have posted a winter forecast on wordpress - the link of which is http://wp.me/p2VSmb-hY



I have tried to be as objective as possible, basing my findings on means and what has happened in the months of October and November.



Because it is based on data stretching back over 130 years to my local area it can only really by applied to this part of the south-east.



It is not a hopecast. As much as I like snow I am much less keen on the ever rising cost of heating fuel - so find I'm much more pragmatic about it. If it snows it snows.



For those that don't want to visit wordpress the body text follows:



Much has been printed in the tabloids over the past month or so that we are in for a severe winter. Not a week goes by without the Daily Express splashing that the 'Worst winter EVER is on the way'. Just this morning the same rag told us that three months of 'exceptionally cold' weather are due. On closer inspection the story elaborated the scene with quotes from James Madden of Exacta Weather, one of the 'experts' feeding these fantastical stories.



Quite how Mr Madden and other experts arrive at these forecasts is a bit of a mystery. The mystery has deepened further since I decided to crunch a few numbers and try to predict what is in store for the months ahead. Looking at data for this area stretching back over 130 years to 1881 I decided to calculate a seasonal average and arrived at a final figure using singularities - basically looking at the weather patterns we've had during October and November.



Many professionals would scoff at this method of pattern-matching, so I've incorporated a couple of other 'now' factors and taken on board current variables such as sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Pacific.



The figure I arrived at, taken as an average of the closest matching autumn periods, is a mean temperature of 4C with rainfall totalling 133mm over the months of December, January and February - that's about a degree colder than average and 90% of average rainfall. The probability of a winter with a mean temperature of between 4C and 5C is 37% - the most likely outcome. With this in mind a winter in the form of 1986-87 is possible - though whether we would see the same extremes of temperature and snowfall that we experienced in January 1987 only time will tell.



Because this format can't cope with the formatting on usenet I have posted a full methodology of my forecast here.http://sdrv.ms/18sYo9N



Anyway, I hope some of you find it an interesting read. I'll be revisiting it on March 1. Best regards, Scott Whitehead

Apologies all but this is the first chance I've had to return to this...

A poor forecast, I'm sure you'll agree, which seemed doomed to failure as soon as the Atlantic cranked into action with such persistence in the middle of December.

Prediction: Mean: 4.0C Rainfall: 133mm
Outcome: Mean: 6.7C Rainfall: 272mm

Looking back it seems that I should have paid more attention to one or two signals that the winter would pan out overall mild - but I think I paid too much attention to broadly neutral ENSO and NAO signals which suggested winter would be 'average' at the very warmest. And perhaps was lulled into a sense of false security that we'd lurched back to a time of colder winters.

Considering the stats going back to 1881 the chance of an exceptional winter such as we've just had was just 5 per cent. And a repeat of 1963 was 1 per cent.

A review of the stats shows that out of my original shortlist of 19 winters that were preceded by an October and November similar to 2013, 4 of them were 6C or warmer - a not insignificant 21 per cent occurrence. However, none of them were anything like as wet. The wettest - 1924-25 - was still only 73 per cent as wet as this winter.

Is predicting a season ahead impossible? Perhaps. But since I made this forecast I've acquired yet more local data - back to 1797 - and will be back again in 9 months, hopefully wiser and with better signals at my disposal.

Cheers all - here's to a long and decent summer

The original methodology is here http://sdrv.ms/18sYo9N

On Tuesday, March 4, 2014 5:05:06 PM UTC, Scott W wrote:
On Saturday, November 30, 2013 2:02:04 PM UTC, Scott W wrote:

I have posted a winter forecast on wordpress - the link of which is http://wp.me/p2VSmb-hY







I have tried to be as objective as possible, basing my findings on means and what has happened in the months of October and November.







Because it is based on data stretching back over 130 years to my local area it can only really by applied to this part of the south-east.







It is not a hopecast. As much as I like snow I am much less keen on the ever rising cost of heating fuel - so find I'm much more pragmatic about it. If it snows it snows.







For those that don't want to visit wordpress the body text follows:







Much has been printed in the tabloids over the past month or so that we are in for a severe winter. Not a week goes by without the Daily Express splashing that the 'Worst winter EVER is on the way'. Just this morning the same rag told us that three months of 'exceptionally cold' weather are due. On closer inspection the story elaborated the scene with quotes from James Madden of Exacta Weather, one of the 'experts' feeding these fantastical stories.







Quite how Mr Madden and other experts arrive at these forecasts is a bit of a mystery. The mystery has deepened further since I decided to crunch a few numbers and try to predict what is in store for the months ahead. Looking at data for this area stretching back over 130 years to 1881 I decided to calculate a seasonal average and arrived at a final figure using singularities - basically looking at the weather patterns we've had during October and November.







Many professionals would scoff at this method of pattern-matching, so I've incorporated a couple of other 'now' factors and taken on board current variables such as sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Pacific.







The figure I arrived at, taken as an average of the closest matching autumn periods, is a mean temperature of 4C with rainfall totalling 133mm over the months of December, January and February - that's about a degree colder than average and 90% of average rainfall. The probability of a winter with a mean temperature of between 4C and 5C is 37% - the most likely outcome.. With this in mind a winter in the form of 1986-87 is possible - though whether we would see the same extremes of temperature and snowfall that we experienced in January 1987 only time will tell.







Because this format can't cope with the formatting on usenet I have posted a full methodology of my forecast here.http://sdrv.ms/18sYo9N







Anyway, I hope some of you find it an interesting read. I'll be revisiting it on March 1. Best regards, Scott Whitehead



Apologies all but this is the first chance I've had to return to this...



A poor forecast, I'm sure you'll agree, which seemed doomed to failure as soon as the Atlantic cranked into action with such persistence in the middle of December.



Prediction: Mean: 4.0C Rainfall: 133mm

Outcome: Mean: 6.7C Rainfall: 272mm



Looking back it seems that I should have paid more attention to one or two signals that the winter would pan out overall mild - but I think I paid too much attention to broadly neutral ENSO and NAO signals which suggested winter would be 'average' at the very warmest. And perhaps was lulled into a sense of false security that we'd lurched back to a time of colder winters..



Considering the stats going back to 1881 the chance of an exceptional winter such as we've just had was just 5 per cent. And a repeat of 1963 was 1 per cent.



A review of the stats shows that out of my original shortlist of 19 winters that were preceded by an October and November similar to 2013, 4 of them were 6C or warmer - a not insignificant 21 per cent occurrence. However, none of them were anything like as wet. The wettest - 1924-25 - was still only 73 per cent as wet as this winter.



Is predicting a season ahead impossible? Perhaps. But since I made this forecast I've acquired yet more local data - back to 1797 - and will be back again in 9 months, hopefully wiser and with better signals at my disposal.



Cheers all - here's to a long and decent summer



The original methodology is here http://sdrv.ms/18sYo9N

Thanks Scott. A poor forecast, yes, but I really appreciate you returning to this forecast and explaining why you think it was so poor!