Weather! what weather

[poter]

Where was the storm front on Sunday, forecast for early Sunday morning on the South west coast?
The Met. BBc etc etc got it wrong!
Actual conditions - Sun, wind 1 to 2 south east, millpond.

Not that I'm complaining,but how come?

Poter.

 

[heerenleed]

SHUT UP

and be happy that the front went elsewhere for once.....

Peter a/b SV Heerenleed, Steenbergen, Netherlands

 

[poter]

Re: SHUT UP

You mean it went yourway?



poter

 

[heerenleed]

Re: SHUT UP

Not this time. It was forecast, but never materialised.

But I was quite capable of gracefully accepting the gift of a weekend without rain and storm (for once) without asking why. They might have changed their minds about it, you know

cheers

Peter a/b SV Heerenleed, Steenbergen, Netherlands

 

[oldharry]

Re: Weather forecasting

The problem for the poor old weather forecaster is that weather tends not to take any notice, and just does its own thing! Weather prediction is just that - an informed guess about what is going to happen next. Things slow down, speed up, weaken or stregthen rpaidly and quite unpredictably, and all the Met Office can do is to feed available information into its computers, and best brains, and say that there is a probability that it will do this or that.

At the end of the day forecasting is still little more than a guessing game, and your guess that the black clouds rolling down from windward are bringing something a bit nasty is as accurate as anything Bracknell or the Beeb can produce.

 

[ccscott49]

Re: Weather forecasting

basically a SWAG, scientific wild arsed guess!

 

[Viking]

Yes but it can happen
A few years back, one summer, the coast guard issued a strong wind warning around 0900. The Solent was still as a millpond with bright sunshine and no wind, everyone was motoring. We got a second warning around midday, Still no wind. I had kept the main reefed all this time, but was still motoring. At 1500, by Ventnor (IOW) there was a fleet 'racing' with everthing up, but going nowhere, we motored through them. At about 1515 the wind hit without 'warning', out of nowhere. 45kts. All hell broke loose, C16 was alive with small boat maydays, two of the 'racing' yachts brooched under the weight of sail up others ran inshore. The sea was up in an instant, the rain which accompanied the wind was horzional, my son at the helm, heard a washboard on his shoulder as the rain hurt the side of his face so much. I let out a metre of jib and we had one hell of a sail.
They dont aways get it wrong.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Dunno about your way, but where I was, on Sunday mid pm, a f2 southerly (sunny and very warm with it) changed to a f 4/5 NWly (and gusting more) with mist and rain and probably a 7 degree C temp drop, in about a 2 minute time span.

As we were marina'd at the time we just put up the sprayhood, closed the forehatch and snoozed downstairs rather than in the cockpit.

 

[heerenleed]

Re: Weather forecasting

The thing with forecasters is, that they tend to sound like they have all the wisdom. This goes for your Met Office just as much as for our Dutch Royal Met Institute.

However, there are more and more private metheorologists that give you more information than just the weather you most probably will get.

Not only do they tell you about the weather systems around, but they will also tell you the options. Like: the most likely is that we're going to have this, BUT, if the system moves a bit (N-S-E-W or slower/faster) then we will get that. This is much better, as they don't lull you into some false sense of security. (your own fault as well, of course) but they will tell you what to watch out for.

It is not the question of being right or wrong in a forecast, but about giving the information you need to understand what is and what will or could be going on.

If you get what I mean..

But still: if you get better weather than forecast, Do Shut Up and don't wonder why. Just enjoy it.....

cheers

Peter a/b SV Heerenleed, Steenbergen, Netherlands