The Big Question: Why did the Met Office get it so wrong?
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Guests run for cover as rain begins to fall during the Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in July
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Why are we asking this now?
In case it has escaped your attention, which is unlikely, this summer is rapidly turning into a washout. The bad weather has led the Met Office to revise its summer forecast saying that instead of the warm, dry weather it predicted in April, the beginning of August is likely to be unsettled and wet.
The misery of heavy showers, cooling winds and cloudy skies has dampened expectations that Britain could finally experience the sort of summer it had enjoyed a few years ago before the last two consecutive summers of wetter-than-normal weather. The Met Office's seasonal prediction in April did much to heighten expectations after the last two years of miserable summers.
What did the Met Office actually say in April?
It said that the coming summer is "odds on for a barbecue summer" and that temperatures are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or below average for the three months of summer. It predicted times when temperatures would soar above 30C, and although it did not rule out the chance of seeing heavy downpours "at times", it said that a repeat of the wet summers of 2007 and 2008 is unlikely.
Ewen McCallum, the chief meteorologist at the Met Office, put it more succinctly when he said: "After two disappointingly wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year. We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30C, something we hardly saw at all last year... we should be seeing some good hot spells and perhaps get the old barbecue out."
This seems quite definite and clearly wrong?
Yes, but the Met Office also put in plenty of caveats into its forecast, not least of which was the idea that the summer is only "odds on" to be barbecue-friendly. It wanted to get over the idea that any seasonal forecast, which this was, is always going to be couched in statistical probabilities. In fact, its scientists calculated that there was only a "65 per cent" chance of them being right on this, which means there was a 35 per cent chance of them getting it wrong.
Dr McCallum himself emphasised at the time that seasonal forecasts of this nature are still very experimental and there are always a lot of random events connected with the inherently chaotic nature of the weather that can blow a prediction off course. In this respect, the statements by the Met Office were not wrong, just perhaps unduly optimistic – although its April forecast may still turn out to be right.
But we are having a terrible summer – they got it wrong, no?
Not quite, or at least not yet. Although July was a pretty awful month, the weather in June was really rather pleasant with higher-than-normal temperatures, long sunny days and little rainfall. People tend not to remember further back than a week or two when it comes to the weather, and one thing that everyone should be able to recall is that this year's Wimbledon passed off with barely any rain – the new roof over the Centre Court was hardly used.
The other thing to remember is that the summer is not over yet. August could, even with an unsettled start, turn out to be dry, warm and sunny, a scenario that could fulfil the Met Office's April prophesy. As Mr McCallum said yesterday: "The jury's still out for most of August, which could still settle down. The patient's not quite dead yet."
Why did the Met Office make such a rash forecast?
A decade or more ago, the Met Office would not have made such a long-term "seasonal" forecast because the science of forecasting was simply not up to it. However, seasonal forecasts are going to be more common as weather forecasting in general gets better.
Forty years ago, weather forecasts were pretty unreliable, even over a one- or two-day period. In fact, a typical four-day forecast today is as accurate as a one-day forecast 40 years ago. However, short-term forecasts today tend to be very accurate, although the geographical position of the British Isles – a temperate, maritime climate of changeable winds – can still blow them off course.
The Met Office believes that the situation today with seasonal forecasts is about where we were 40 years ago with short-range forecasts. It is possible to give some indication of what is likely to happen over the next few months, but a more precise prediction is not yet possible.
How does anyone predict what the British weather is going to do?
Weather forecasting relies on three things: information coming in from different parts of the world about the weather, computing power to handle and process these data and the skill of human interpretation. All three have got better over time.
Data on changes in air and sea temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity, barometric pressure and cloud cover, combined with the explosive increase in computer power, have enabled scientists to build up accurate models of how the weather is likely to develop over a given area of land. And satellites have transformed the ability of meteorologists to gather data on the changing physical parameters that constitute the weather. They can cover huge areas of land and sea and can operate pretty much non-stop every day of the year.
What makes seasonal forecasting different from normal forecasting?
Seasonal forecasting involves analysing data over longer periods of time, and wider areas of the Earth's surface, than short-range forecasts. Scientists attempt to identify "signals" that could indicate whether a summer or winter period is likely to be wetter or warmer than usual. An important part of the process is looking at the changing state of the sea because it is now clear that one of the most important factors controlling long-term weather trends is the interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere.
But it will only ever be possible to give overall probabilities on the likely outcome of seasonal forecasts because of the inherent randomness of the world's weather system. When the "La Niña" ocean phenomenon of the South Pacific is active, for instance, a wetter-than-normal summer in Europe is four times more likely.
Is the Met Office ever going to be able to give accurate seasonal forecasts?
Yes...
* Satellites have transformed the ability of scientists to gather weather data
* Computers are increasing in power and creating better models of the weather
* We are only beginning to understand long-range weather forecasting
No...
* It made a mess of the previous two summer forecasts – in 2007 and 2008
* Short-range forecasts are very different from making guesses over many months
* The weather is too chaotic and random to ever make accurate long-term predictions
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Comments
In Japan where I live now we just don't have planes flying overhead spraying us with their junk and consequently it's blue skies and no abnormal weather patterns (and less of the propaganda about global warming thankfully). I was horrified when back visiting England last month to sit in the garden and watch while planes went back and forth all afternoon turning blue skies white with their chemtrails spewing out the back (not to be mistaken with the usual contrails that only last a few minutes at most). It's sad how people these days have been trained so as to be able to see something with their own eyes and still claim it doesn't exist. It may only be a small factor affecting the weather over there, who knows, but it certainly warrants some more serious attention, especially seeing as some parts of America and Canada which also have the chemtrail problem have also been having similarly bizarre and wet summers.
On a side note for any skeptics who refuse to accept that man can manipulate the weather, the UN was talking as far back as the 1970s about the dangers of weather manipulation being used for military or political purposes. Funny how they've been keeping quiet about it recently.
Do you mean the vapour trails left behind by commercial jets. I saw a documentary about this a couple of years ago. The problem started many decaded ago, but now the jet engines are becoming more efficient and we should see fewer trails (vapour trails might be called contrails). They account for about 17% dimming around regions with busy airports. In the doc they called this "global dimming" effect.
I think you are implying that something extra is being added to these commercial jets to cause these delibrately.
The UK has a history of testing various chemicals and biological agents on its own citizens and the Ministry of Defence has even admitted in the past that there was a massive programme of spraying going on for a few decades last century with various agents produced at Porton Down. The US government also ran biological experiments on its own cities a few decades ago in which people died, but unfortunately people in the western world refuse to believe that something like that could be true. The reason I mentioned it in this comments section was to bring it to peoples' attention as it has been implicated as a possible reason for the strange changes in weather that have been occurring recently. Some of the residue which has fallen to the ground after mass spraying has tested positive for heavy metals and it is known that certain metals (as well as their obvious damaging affects to health) when sprayed into the atmosphere will seed cloud formation. Admittedly when it comes to the reason it is happening we are venturing into the realms of theory, but the existence of the trails themselves (although you won't notice them everyday and in every part of the country) is undeniable and due to the secret nature of it we can only assume there is something untoward going on.
1. There are only four types of cloud
2. anything else must therefore be AN EVIL GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY TO POISON OUR BRAINS! WITH PLANES!
kind of falls over at 1 really.
The Met Office said "it is 2:1 on that summer will be hot and dry", the press then said "the summer will be hot and dry". How DID the Met Office get it so wrong? They had lots of help.
No they don't.
I did an analysis over a 6 month period of met office forecasts that showed the accuracy was worse than flipping a coin. Using the old simple 5-day forecast that they used to have on the online BBC weather page, I cut and pasted the today, tomorrow, next and third day forecasts into a spreadsheet each day. The analysis showed that comparing the today's description of the weather with what had been forecast three days prior, was on average accurate less than 30% of the time. That's basically useless. It's a safer bet to assume that the weather will be the same as today's - that's more accurate than the daily fiction provided to taxpayer's at a cost of £90million p.a.
Now despite the things people are saying the poles and the earth have been cooling over the last few years. This could be down to La nina, the point is a large dominant high pressure system has been sitting just north of iceland for the best part of a month (it sat there for both the last 2 summers). This dominant high has been forcing the jet stream to take a dive west of Ireland forcing low pressure systems to swing accross the UK. Unless the high pressure system in the North abates there is very little chance of a settled summer spell. On the plus side, now that el nino has started to take hold there is a real chance of some decent weather (all be it in very late summer early autum. The chances therefore of another really wet summer next year is very unlikely.)
As for Chemtrails, there is a very high possibility that for political reasons weather can be manipulated, i actually believed this is what happened 2 years agao when blair left office. As soon as he left our economy collapsed and the weather got very poor!! Coincedance? maybe.
This is global cooling, (thats not to say global warming doesn't exist, the world warms and cools itself all the time).
The arguments for them fall down just as delightfully as the ones claiming the Apollo programme was a hoax.
All I need for my entertainment to be complete is for someone to link the two.
Moving on from an inability to use the apostrophe correctly, many people (mostly under 25) now seem totally unable to use the question mark properly.
They are under the impression that putting it after a statement magically transforms it into a question.
Because they are so in thrall of Global Warming that every summer will now be predicted to be the hottest ever! Pillocks.
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
Steve Tell me onething that is right on the above comments of yours. Yes and the 3rd is we are new in these fields
Yes...
* Satellites have transformed the ability of scientists to gather weather data Then we lose the databases.
* Computers are increasing in power and creating better models of the weather RIRO GIGO is still with us.
* We are only beginning to understand long-range weather forecasting Yes it is new so are the many IT issues in the health
No...
* It made a mess of the previous two summer forecasts ? in 2007 and 2008 So? Number two above
* Short-range forecasts are very different from making guesses over many months I agree but so are the clouds and wind flows
* The weather is too chaotic and random to ever make accurate long-term predictions
There QED.
Can we now tell the guys who play cricket to pack up faster, clean the pitch and wait for the sun?
Many controvercies here and there, but LO Leave this to ALLAH GOD The mighty He has the winds in His commands.
BUT WE HAVE THIS THIS The United Nations food aid agency said Wednesday it will be forced to cut programs even as hunger soars amid the global economic crisis because pledged donations have failed to materialize.World Food Programme executive director Josette Sheeran said that the agency's 2009 budget of "assessed, approved needs" is 6.7 billion dollars. The WFP now expects, after consultations with governments, donations of 3.7 billion.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
What is the problem. I say if they want to fight in summer or winter the soldiers are theirs, food theirs, ice cubes theirs, tenets, theirs, the girls serving them theirs, unless you want to go there. Do you have a passport? No? Can we stop here and get our bearing correct.
A Swedish couple looking for the pristine waters of the popular island of Capri ended some 660 kilometres away in the northern industrial town of Carpi after misspelling the destination on their car's GPS. Angelo Giovannini, a spokesman for the Carpi town hall, near Modena, said the couple drove into the main square last week and asked the local tourist office how to reach Capri's famed Blue Grotto sea cave. Giovannini said "we thought they might mean a restaurant. Capri is an island, they did not even wonder why they didn't cross any bridge or take any boat." Some are lucky to have the cars run are they not?
WHY WHY WHY Do I post his here IT tells you that we are ON THE GPS. ALL THE TIME. Do not drink and dive it is bad for the fishes.
I love the two. You see this is one way of staying together for few day holding hands after the marriages. Not many have the luck. IS THAT NOT A GOOD NEWS? F*** Economy. Read the goodies I says
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
When people say that "weather is not climate", or vice versa, then they should relay those words directly to the Green Taliban that have hijacked the Met Office and who are more interested in spreading AGW propaganda than in forecasting the actual weather.
That doesn't mean there is no global warming, just that predictions of climate models should not be considered as anything like relaible.
A vast spending spree granted on the back of its hubristic fanciful claims about global warming.
It cannot forecast 3 months into the future. Its computer model for 200 years into the future is flawed as well.
The Met Office has lost touch with science - it is a quango looking to justify itself looking to muscle in on whatever it can, it is looking to aggrandize itself. And now of course it cannot afford to say, to admit, it is wrong. Like all the climate grandees they now pervert science to keep their noses in the trough.
There was no science behind the forcast it was solely given out to get people to take their holiday in uk.
The earth and the Universe has a combination of systematic patterns combined with chaotic and erratic behaviour. The complexity is compounded by the fact that there a very large number of systems, many know and other still to be discovered. These systems (Sun, Moon, position in our solar system, position in the galaxy, solar flares, ocean currents, jetstreams, contrails, earth's magma pulse etc etc) interact with each other to create the weather system.
Humans are good at observing patterns and with satellite monitoring able to get a broad picture of waether patterns across large chunks of the planet. However, in making weather predictions, I suspect the model doesnt take significant notice of erractic behaviour of all the systems.
We are told that this year, the upper atmosphere jetstream path has passed over the UK causing this bad weather. The model may have predicted this, but the model is going to promote the weather which is most likely to occur, not some low probability outcome.