Met Office Weather Forecast? Hmmmmmmm....
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Yes Io, but youyr valid comments were also lost in your assertions that everything was also wrong. See how easy it is?
Tell me more about the 3D data and why you want it. Is it proprietary and therefore the reason it is not available. What product could be created that this data can be used practically for by the average GA IFR flyer rather than those who have an interest in in-depth weather study.
Tell me more about the 3D data and why you want it. Is it proprietary and therefore the reason it is not available. What product could be created that this data can be used practically for by the average GA IFR flyer rather than those who have an interest in in-depth weather study.
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Is it proprietary and therefore the reason it is not available
The matter is settled
Incidentally, it was produced with taxpayers' money.
"Proprietary weather data"..
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Is it proprietary and therefore the reason it is not available
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OK, yes, the UKMO does not release the model because it is sold to commercial weather data resellers.
I have used a few premium rate numbers of professional weather forecasters. They have access to this data. It appears you can get it for 4 digits per year.
If you wanted to improve services to IFR GA, and bearing in mind that nothing can be done about ICAO-mandated products such as the SigWx, releasing the 3D model would be the best thing.
Tephigrams can be interpreted (to a useful level) by anybody who can read a couple of pages of instructions.
If the UKMO released its 3D model, it would not be long before amateur sites like Meteoblue would pick it up and generate graphical products.
Failing that, we always have GFS, so in a perverse sort of way the UKMO is becoming less relevant all the time.
I have used a few premium rate numbers of professional weather forecasters. They have access to this data. It appears you can get it for 4 digits per year.
If you wanted to improve services to IFR GA, and bearing in mind that nothing can be done about ICAO-mandated products such as the SigWx, releasing the 3D model would be the best thing.
Tephigrams can be interpreted (to a useful level) by anybody who can read a couple of pages of instructions.
If the UKMO released its 3D model, it would not be long before amateur sites like Meteoblue would pick it up and generate graphical products.
Failing that, we always have GFS, so in a perverse sort of way the UKMO is becoming less relevant all the time.
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Your apology is accepted.......
OK so it is unlikely that they will release a commercially sensitive model, so the question is what product can they be asked to produce that will be off value?
OK so it is unlikely that they will release a commercially sensitive model, so the question is what product can they be asked to produce that will be off value?
Red On, Green On
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The owner/founder of Metcheck was sentenced to eight years in prison for grooming and child sexual abuse.
Eight years for Exeter man who groomed boy, 14, before rape and abuse
The site is still up, but I won't be using it again.
Eight years for Exeter man who groomed boy, 14, before rape and abuse
The site is still up, but I won't be using it again.
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Oh my God!
Simple but effective punishment for amateur weather forecasting child abusing pervert: Connect a lightning conductor to his D/(k and leave him outside in a thunderstorm.
Primitive I know but bound to be effective.
I will also no longer use that site.
SB
Primitive I know but bound to be effective.
I will also no longer use that site.
SB
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Dammit!! Interesting ethical point though. I use the site regularly and find it useful. On the other hand the owner of the site is a paedo and is going to get a long and uncomfortable sentence for abuse.
I hope that the site will continue under new management unconnected with the old regime, so a boycott may or may not be hurting the new owners.
I hope we'll get some information from anyone taking it on shortly, or I will take the same line as others.
I hope that the site will continue under new management unconnected with the old regime, so a boycott may or may not be hurting the new owners.
I hope we'll get some information from anyone taking it on shortly, or I will take the same line as others.
Weather forecasting: progress
Interesting thread. I hope it is worth expressing my judgement that, during my 41 year career [ending 1998] there was a huge, out of sight, improvement in weather forecasting across the board. Not that it had a great deal to do with my efforts.
If other fields of human endeavour [think financial, political etc] could be predicted as accurately, we would be in a dream world.
One other point. Those sounding-off at the Met Office might pause for a moment to reflect that we were [and hopefully still are] very dedicated, very well trained, and with a very high professional ethos. Certainly I was proud and privileged to serve those 41 years before the seaweed. The money could have been better, mind you.
If other fields of human endeavour [think financial, political etc] could be predicted as accurately, we would be in a dream world.
One other point. Those sounding-off at the Met Office might pause for a moment to reflect that we were [and hopefully still are] very dedicated, very well trained, and with a very high professional ethos. Certainly I was proud and privileged to serve those 41 years before the seaweed. The money could have been better, mind you.
Langley,
I very much doubt that anyone questions the dedication and integrity of Met Office staff.
However, the Met Office doesn't help itself much in terms of perception. Not long ago, they were touting the prospect of a hotter and dryer than average summer in 2009, whetting the appetites of VFR pilot such as me, who have struggled to get in the air during the miserable summers of 2007 & 2008.
And then guess what. Since the beginning of June, it's been the same old story in the south east. Rain, wind, low cloud. Thunder and lightning. My garden's been flooded. Extreme weather warnings in the north. The barby's not been out for two weeks. This weekend looks a bit better (although not as good as was being forecast a couple of days ago), then it's back to the same old "unsettled" crapola next week.
To my jaundiced eye, not a great deal of accurate forecasting going on there.
I very much doubt that anyone questions the dedication and integrity of Met Office staff.
However, the Met Office doesn't help itself much in terms of perception. Not long ago, they were touting the prospect of a hotter and dryer than average summer in 2009, whetting the appetites of VFR pilot such as me, who have struggled to get in the air during the miserable summers of 2007 & 2008.
And then guess what. Since the beginning of June, it's been the same old story in the south east. Rain, wind, low cloud. Thunder and lightning. My garden's been flooded. Extreme weather warnings in the north. The barby's not been out for two weeks. This weekend looks a bit better (although not as good as was being forecast a couple of days ago), then it's back to the same old "unsettled" crapola next week.
To my jaundiced eye, not a great deal of accurate forecasting going on there.
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Aha, this thread rears its ugly head again!
The way I see it, the problem is not so much accuracy, but rather that the forecast is too simplistic and generalised (i.e. dumbed down for thicko Chavs).
Often forecasts talk of, for example, "showers in the North", but what they actually mean is there is a chance of showers in some places in the North; in other words what happens is some places Up North stay dry, others are wet all day; or, as another example, "sunny spells in the South" means that certain places will bask in glorious sunshine all day, yet other places will be dull and overcast. Result? Inevitably the Met Office/BBC is accused of bad forecasting, when really it's not wrong at all, it's the way in which the information is presented; Too simplistic and generalised.
All a forecast is is an educated guess at what the weather will be like at a point in the future. It's not the easiest job... reading back through the thread I think I was far too harsh in some of my criticism which I take back... again a lot of the time the problem is not the forecast but how it is interpreted either by the user or in terms of the way the data is presented either on TV or on a website.
Yes, sometimes a forecast will be wrong, it's impossible to get it right all of the time.
Just my (hopefully more sensible this time) input.
Smithy.
The way I see it, the problem is not so much accuracy, but rather that the forecast is too simplistic and generalised (i.e. dumbed down for thicko Chavs).
Often forecasts talk of, for example, "showers in the North", but what they actually mean is there is a chance of showers in some places in the North; in other words what happens is some places Up North stay dry, others are wet all day; or, as another example, "sunny spells in the South" means that certain places will bask in glorious sunshine all day, yet other places will be dull and overcast. Result? Inevitably the Met Office/BBC is accused of bad forecasting, when really it's not wrong at all, it's the way in which the information is presented; Too simplistic and generalised.
All a forecast is is an educated guess at what the weather will be like at a point in the future. It's not the easiest job... reading back through the thread I think I was far too harsh in some of my criticism which I take back... again a lot of the time the problem is not the forecast but how it is interpreted either by the user or in terms of the way the data is presented either on TV or on a website.
Yes, sometimes a forecast will be wrong, it's impossible to get it right all of the time.
Just my (hopefully more sensible this time) input.
Smithy.
Last edited by Captain Smithy; 12th Jun 2009 at 09:54. Reason: Grammatical correction
Long-Range forecasting is a sick joke, always has been, always will be, we were trying to do it in 1960 [my wife was a pioneer in the taskforce till I rescued her]; it was rubbish then and rubbish now. Hostage to fortune.
My task was short-range, for a very demanding and very educated client, the Staish and his WingCo Ops. Any forecaster deemed not up to the mark BY THE CUSTOMER got nudged on. I expect the nudgees ended up in Long Range forecasting [ugly men] and the TV [not the ugly men] or HR.
RAF Uxbridge, Gatwick Airport as it opened, Nicosia [the Staish was Mickey Martin], Leeming, Topcliffe, Dishforth, Acklington, Church Fenton, Finningley, Guetersloh, JHQ Rheindahlen, 1Group Bawtry [Mike Knight], JHQ Rheindahlen as CMetO [Sandy Wilson], Brize.
Got the T shirt and the Weber.
My task was short-range, for a very demanding and very educated client, the Staish and his WingCo Ops. Any forecaster deemed not up to the mark BY THE CUSTOMER got nudged on. I expect the nudgees ended up in Long Range forecasting [ugly men] and the TV [not the ugly men] or HR.
RAF Uxbridge, Gatwick Airport as it opened, Nicosia [the Staish was Mickey Martin], Leeming, Topcliffe, Dishforth, Acklington, Church Fenton, Finningley, Guetersloh, JHQ Rheindahlen, 1Group Bawtry [Mike Knight], JHQ Rheindahlen as CMetO [Sandy Wilson], Brize.
Got the T shirt and the Weber.
Administrator
Well, one of the most crucial weather forecasts, out to about 48 hours, was made just over 65 years ago by Group Captain JM Stagg.
His team's prediction of a - just adequate - break in the stormy conditions at the beginning of June 1944 allowed Ike to give the Normandy landings the go-ahead.
He was correct and the rest, as they say...
Respect to him for shouldering that initial responsibility.
SD
His team's prediction of a - just adequate - break in the stormy conditions at the beginning of June 1944 allowed Ike to give the Normandy landings the go-ahead.
He was correct and the rest, as they say...
Respect to him for shouldering that initial responsibility.
SD
