Drier than normal winter say Met Office !

You forgot dandelion clocks.

I urge all who are supporters of the Met Office – and their enormous budget, and critics of their capability – ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’ computers, to contact the International Meteorological Service here near Chichester for twice daily forecasts based on scientific analysis of fresh kelp, the local wild budgerigar population and – this will appeal to Al (Braveheart) Och Aye The Noo, – the herd of nearly tame Highland cattle in the field near to where the fresh kelp is harvested on a daily basis.

This service is free to all and mirrors uncannily that offered by Snafu at 11. The only interruption of our service to farmers, fishermen, head bangers and Scots Nats, is likely to come when the fresh kelp finally dries to the point when it can be sold as rolled tobacco and smoked. At that point there will be no weather until normal service is resumed using new crisp, fluffy, fresh kelp or, that great standby, buttercups.

This comment is about as sensible as the Met Office is accurate.

But the computer is used to interpret nature and to anticipate it – and it is successful short term but not long term.

Yes but nature will still make the final decisions-not a computer

Yes indeed.

Granted – but at least there is science behind it!

I think we have confused short range and long range forecasting here. Met Office short to medium range forecasting is probably second to none but neither they nor anyone else is much good at long range forecasting.

Maybe the Met Office should just pack it in and go do something more useful.
Post your telephone numbers here, and let the customers from civil aviation, RAF, Army, Navy, Police, water and flood authorities, roads departments, rescue services, shipping, etc know how to contact you for a forecast.
Easy…

Is it?

If anyone gets a long range forecast right it’s luck and guesswork. We could do just as well.

Even I can do it…
It will be slightly warmer around the middle of the year, getting cooler at and after the end of the year, with occasional seasonal variations. It will rain, but when it isn’t raining it will be overcast with occasional sunny spells of varying length. To be on the safe side always carry an umbrella, wear sandals, Bermuda shorts and a down-stuffed puffa jacket with a fur hat. Always.

But the bottom line is ,it is still wrong:p

It’s not guesswork, but the most likely outcome of numerous computer runs using the most current initial data, just like any forecast models – whether it’s the weather, stocks and shares, earthquakes, war games, or ice cream sales.

For example, most computer runs may track a particular depression to run through the English Channel, but instead it actually tracks along the southern counties. So what? That’s only, say, 50 miles out, but it may mean the difference between those counties getting high winds or none, heavy prolonged rain or just a few spots, overcast or clear.

Even when humans advanced enough to travel to the moon, it was always that thin little layer of the Earth’s atmosphere which gave the biggest problems…

If anyone gets a long range forecast right it’s luck and guesswork. We could do just as well.

Don’t fool yourselves though – the UK Met Office is the best in the world at what it does. Just ask the Americans, who have asked for British military forecasters to provide their forecasts from D-Day through the Gulf War to Afghanistan.

…

Still gets it wrong–just less than all the others.

Re 4

Are you by chance related to derekf ? Just an innocent question.

[QUOTE=Al;2115606

Don’t fool yourselves though – the UK Met Office is the best in the world at what it does. Just ask the Americans, who have asked for British military forecasters to provide their forecasts from D-Day through the Gulf War to Afghanistan.

It might be a national pastime to ridicule the Met Office, but it’s really just a sign of pure ignorance. Only one entity knows exactly what’s going to happen, and even he doesn’t exist…[/QUOTE]

All quite true which is why they should stop all long range forecasting and why we should take with a large dollop of salt climate change forecasting. It is just as much a lottery and for similar reasons..

Never heard of the ‘Butterfly Effect’? The Met Office computers run on known physical laws – an initial set of numbers (temperature, wind, pressure etc) is carried forward by computer ‘runs’ for a given amount of time using Newton’s formulas. Unfortunately, that’s where the effect comes in – if you change, say, the initial temperature by just the tiniest percentage, repeating the formulas over and over again amplifies that small change, and results in a totally different outcome from the first. That’s why short-range forecasts are usually very accurate.

A publicised long-range forecast is simply the ‘best fit’ from hundreds of different possible outcomes – and is often completely wrong, and I suspect there will always these uncertainties. Even with today’s most powerful computers, the atmosphere can only be modelled with a resolution measured in kilometres, while the real atmosphere works on a molecular, if not quantum level.

Don’t fool yourselves though – the UK Met Office is the best in the world at what it does. Just ask the Americans, who have asked for British military forecasters to provide their forecasts from D-Day through the Gulf War to Afghanistan.

It might be a national pastime to ridicule the Met Office, but it’s really just a sign of pure ignorance. Only one entity knows exactly what’s going to happen, and even he doesn’t exist…

I think you will find that their long term forecasts for the last two summers and the last three winters were diametrically opposed to the reality.

And forgive the intrusion into a contentious subject but the very same computers used for climate change prediction.

I shan’t ask them for next weeks winning lottery numbers.

I guess it proves we aren’t gods ,we can try and predict but ultimately we have to put up with what happens.
Oh well driest winter-just a drop in the ocean

VERY VERY GOOD ON THE EAU DEAR :applause: