Monday, July 02, 2012

Cast ne'er a clout till May's out

I mentioned some time ago that Piers Corbyn had been up to his old tricks with an apocalyptic prediction of doom for the coldest May ever in the UK, right in time for our recent trip there.

May is long since out, and it's time to get clouting. May turned out to be slightly warmer than average. I wonder who actually pays for his "forecasts"?

7 comments:

Durotrigan said...

As ever, Piers has tried to explain away his abject failure on this occasion by claiming that he was 'right' with respect to the first half of May. Well, yes, the first half of May was very cold, but the last week was very hot, which naturally, does not equate to Corbyn's "coldest May in 100 years" claim. Still, his followers seem to be undeterred by such a glaring failure.

Inspired by Corbyn, I felt that I'd have a stab at a forecast for the remainder of summer and autumn. If he can make money out of doing this, why can't I?

Paul S said...

I heard an interview with a purchasing manager for a major supermarket, I think on the epic program 'Will it Snow?'. He said they subscribe to a long-range weather forecasting service, and use that to inform decisions about what stock to keep.

Might not be Piers Corbyn's, but as far as I know, none of these services perform better than chance. Interesting that major businesses apparently prefer useless information to zero information.

crf said...

Paul S: The issue may be whether enough of this supermarket business's customers believe the same thing as the forecasting service.

In that case, the supermarket may want to know what Piers Corbyn is going to say about the weather (and in advance of when he publishes it).

Weather is fashionable. Piers Corbyn is a star fashion reporter, with a following in the press. The business wants the scoop on what's he's going to choose for this year weather fashion theme.

James Annan said...

It seems that Corbyn's modus operandi is to forecast as many extreme situations as possible (with plenty of adjectives but not too many quantifiable predictions), and then if anything vaguely similar occurs, shout loudly about the "success", even if it wasn't actually what he forecast. I can see it being a viable strategy for someone with plenty of chutzpah and a talent for self-delusion.

William M. Connolley said...

Even AW no longer believes... http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/05/putting-piers-corbyn-to-the-test/

What's the betting that this, too, disproves GW?

Robert Murphy said...

Watts said on the Corbyn thread:

"It tends to set off my BS meter like some tabloid newspapers do."

It comes as a surprise to this poster that Watts even has a BS meter, let alone has ever turned it on. Now that he has it activated, perhaps he could turn his attention to his own blog.

James Annan said...

Thanks for the watts link...I think :-)

Always amusing to see sceptics eating each other as soon as they try to come up with some vaguely coherent theories....