Met Office 'fesses up

oldbilbo

oldbilbo

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Well, almost but not quite....

Once again, the truth had to be dragged out of this bloated and hugely-expensive taxpayer-funded quango.... This time, it took a repeated Freedom Of Information demand by the BBC to winkle out the text of their 3-month Long Range forecast that we, the taxpaying public, were not allowed to see.... < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21967190 > ....and all the usual excuses have been trotted out by their cadre of 'scientific civil servants' who, yet again, blame the statistics while asking for more money and bigger supercomputers. That's the one aspect of Met Office output that is reliably predictable.....

They can't get the 3-Month Outlook right and now admit it, lamely comparing the forecasting process they use as similar to betting on the horses..... and as reliable. They do, however, trumpet absolute confidence in their flannel about long-range climate change, using the same computers, the same models, the same overpaid 'scientific civil servants' and PR staff.

Not for the first time, I ask myself who will call this bunch of spendthrifts to account. Just half the sum they spend each year on ever-larger computing facilities, international conferences in exotic holiday resorts and EU-style expense accounts would fund a whole lot of hospital wards, rather a lot of trainee nurses, and even a double handful of 'teaching midwives' - all of which this society is seriously short of.

Does anyone else suspect this is a gravy train which has gone off the rails...?
 
oldbilbo said:
Does anyone else suspect this is a gravy train which has gone off the rails...?
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I lived in Bracknell for 21 years and got to know many people that worked at the Met office. I can say hand on heart that apart from
some of the senior annalists and senior forecasters, the majority who worked there were just a bunch of wasters siting on their arses
waiting for their pension. Typical civil servants.
The Met office has close connections with the, not fit for purpose, MOD so don't expect it to change.
 
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I my distant past I supplied computer software to the lot in Bracknell. Spent quite a lot of time visiting them.

Happy to take their money (or was it my own?) but a very unimpressive lot.
 
Well what are the other options? Piers Corbyn has been very quiet of late so I assume his latest stab in the dark was wrong.

The met office stopped releasing long range forecasts because they are pretty much impossible. However they still have to make them in house because if you don't try then you'll never know if perhaps one day it will be possible.
As for the climate change, they're just pandering to the wants of politicians and a fair proportion of the public.
 
The met office have recently been reported as saying they get 75% of forecasts correct
I just wish they would tell me in advance what 75% that is because i always seem to go sailing on the 25%
We could save the 200 million per annum & sack the lot & just buy in reports from the French or Germans
Their reports are just as bad so no great loss
 
Daydream believer said:
The met office have recently been reported as saying they get 75% of forecasts correct
I just wish they would tell me in advance what 75% that is because i always seem to go sailing on the 25%
We could save the 200 million per annum & sack the lot & just buy in reports from the French or Germans
Their reports are just as bad so no great loss
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Careful, a lot of Europe get their forecasts from the Met Office. Scrap that and you might find that German and French forecasts are even worse.
 
Woodlouse said:
Careful, a lot of Europe get their forecasts from the Met Office. Scrap that and you might find that German and French forecasts are even worse.
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The French are contracted to sell theirs to a number of countries such as Greece
They sometimes beat the met office in tender
The German forecast is used on NASA weatherman & reports are limited but no worse than Navtex
As you say we may be worse off but 75% success rate is a lottery anyway
 
capnsensible said:
Back to the seaweed then. Sigh.
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Or the 'Stone'.
WeatherForecastStone.jpg
 
Being local I've had a few tours of the Met Office and have used their professional services in the past. Over the years two things have struck me over the years:

a) The new facilities in Exeter are impressive; and

b) The accuracy of the forecast that they publish to the media has greatly improved.

Sadly, we can no longer just ring our local duty weather forecaster and get a proper forecast, that service went years ago, and was really, really useful when going to sea or up a mountain.

What has impressed me is the system by which they collect and share data with every other forecasting organisation on the planet. Just wish the current trend for having to apologise for everything since the start of time would be stopped by all in government.
 
oldbilbo said:
Well, almost but not quite....

Once again, the truth had to be dragged out of this bloated and hugely-expensive taxpayer-funded quango.... This time, it took a repeated Freedom Of Information demand by the BBC to winkle out the text of their 3-month Long Range forecast that we, the taxpaying public, were not allowed to see.... < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21967190 > ....and all the usual excuses have been trotted out by their cadre of 'scientific civil servants' who, yet again, blame the statistics while asking for more money and bigger supercomputers. That's the one aspect of Met Office output that is reliably predictable.....

They can't get the 3-Month Outlook right and now admit it, lamely comparing the forecasting process they use as similar to betting on the horses..... and as reliable. They do, however, trumpet absolute confidence in their flannel about long-range climate change, using the same computers, the same models, the same overpaid 'scientific civil servants' and PR staff.

Not for the first time, I ask myself who will call this bunch of spendthrifts to account. Just half the sum they spend each year on ever-larger computing facilities, international conferences in exotic holiday resorts and EU-style expense accounts would fund a whole lot of hospital wards, rather a lot of trainee nurses, and even a double handful of 'teaching midwives' - all of which this society is seriously short of.

Does anyone else suspect this is a gravy train which has gone off the rails...?
Click to expand...

No. To the contrary, I reckon your problem is technical illiteracy. :eek:

The problem is where the UK is placed on the globe. We are under the track of the jetstream and the best way I can describe predicting the track of the jetstream is like predicting the flapping of a flag. Sure you know its going to flap. We even know which direction its mostly going to fly in but you cant predict with any accuracy where the end of that flag is going to be at any point in time. At the present state of our scientific development, the movement is at least partially random and its the same with the jetstream. In contrast, its a lot easier to forecast weather just 500 miles south of the UK when you know the jetstream is going to be north of you. Its even easier to forecast weather in big land masses like central russia. Weather forecasting for the UK is simply very difficult , far more so than for the US or even France. The only similar country difficulty wise is NZ.

So yes, the forecasts have been withdrawn because Joe Public who doesnt know a forecast from a guarantee isnt well enough educated in science to understand. Maybe if they put confidence limits on the forecasts? As in 5C +/- 2C ??
Should we cut back on research spending - of course not. Would you cut back onb drug development spending because we dont yet have a cure for cancer? I doubt it.

And with 1.4 million people working for the NHS, no we dont need any more staff. We need those we have to be better organised and work more productively.

And to finish off with the usual climate change issue. Even you can forecast that summer in the UK is going to be warmer than winter. Our summer climate is warmer than our winter one. You can do that because its much much easier and far more reliable to forecast the average of events than the individual events. Averages , and the climate is an average of the weather, is far more stable than individual day to day events. But then I suspect you already know that and are simply being a bit grumpy.
 
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I can't comment on whether the Met Office is good value for money or not, but as an avid follower of the weather I'm quite impressed by the accuracy of the global numerical models up to 5-7 days. My gripe with the Met Office is that a lot of the general output seems dumbed-down and/or very short term (1-2 days). They seem to think that unless you're a farmer, Joe Public is not interested beyond that time frame. OR..are they are playing it TOO safe because of the type of criticism here? Follow Simon Keeling's YouTube videos and you'll begin to understand that looking out beyond a week or so is very tricky, and honestly I'd be amazed if any model can (or will be able to) predict precise outcomes of a chaotic system even further ahead.
 
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