Sunday, March 27, 2011

Weather forecaster in forecasting weather shock

Well, it had to happen. The meeja demands a forecast, but the Met Office won't give one any more (basically because they realise it's hard to be both skilful and useful within the constraints of newspaper soundbites). Journalists abhor a vacuum but unlike nature they can simply invent something to fill it up, and in that vein the Torygraph has given one of these "independent long-term forecast experts", one Jonathan Powell, a free plug. I didn't find anything useful on his website (and certainly no evidence of demonstrated ability) but according to the Torygraph Article he has basically suggested that there will be weather this summer:

“Summer does not look as good as the last two years – it will be more of a ‘brolly and sunblock’ summer, with a mixture of good and bad weather.

“It will be mix of dry, sunny and warm days plus some cooler, cloudier and wetter conditions.

“It’s not going to be a poor summer, and will encouraging at times – but we will have to take the rough with the smooth and enjoy the good weather while it lasts,” he said.

To be fair, there are some hints at quantifiable outcomes too, such as no prolonged hot periods in June (but what is prolonged and hot?) and temps above 30C in early August. We'll see...

2 comments:

J Bowers said...

The Met Office gave up on publishing leng term forecasts after asking the public what they wanted, and were told "We don't want that". Of course, it's all the Met Office's fault as usual. They still do them, but only to forewarn on extreme weather such as the heavy snow at the end of last year. Yes, that's right readers, they did give plenty of warning to Her Majesty's Government about the harsh snow in Brittania. It didn't stop the GWPF and neoliberati from accusing them of not doing their job, naturally, and demands for more enquiries were therefore demanded by the Benny and Nigel black comedy act in an impressive Gish Gallop of confusion of what constitutes weather and what constitutes climate.

James Annan said...

Yes, IIRC they were initially blamed for not predicting the cold, until the critics found out they had, at which point it was their fault anyway for predicting it but only telling clients