When did weather forecasters get so damned accurate?

Cobra

Cobra

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You are kidding right? that (invisible) storm has really got to get a shift on to full fill the prophecy !

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Half an hour later and they have bottled it! :D

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Yes I was expecting rain but went out with the camera anyway, got to make the most of my free time and it turned out nice after all :)
 
LCPete said:
Yes I was expecting rain but went out with the camera anyway, got to make the most of my free time and it turned out nice after all :)
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Hurry home, I have bedding on the rotary drier if that doesn't make it rain I don't know what will :D
 
Cobra said:
Hurry home, I have bedding on the rotary drier if that doesn't make it rain I don't know what will :D
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They said it would be cooler today, so ventured out with the camera and it's just as warm as yesterday, temp gauge on car was showing 30 degrees
when I came home ( I have air con :p)
 
Cobra said:
So do I in my car, but I wasn't driving my car :(
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Could be worse, I could have been following you
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It is lovely, day 4 of my BBQ season tonight :) And I might even join my children and run through the sprinkler in the garden
 
When did the forecast get better? When the Met Office moved out of Bracknell! Mind you, I can see the sky over their current location and they still sometimes disagree with reality!
 
one thing confuses me about forecasts though, when they say the country is going to get "localised flooding" or "localised xxxxxxx" surely everywhere is local to everyone so what does localised mean.
 
Not sure the new computer system's installed or up and running yet. I'll ask a couple of Mrs Nod's students who are forecasters there next time I see them.

ETA... When they're asked what the weather's going to do, the look out of the window!!!
 
Nod said:
Not sure the new computer system's installed or up and running yet. I'll ask a couple of Mrs Nod's students who are forecasters there next time I see them.

ETA... When they're asked what the weather's going to do, the look out of the window!!!
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Google tells me
Funding has been confirmed for a £97m supercomputer to improve the Met Office's weather forecasting and climate modelling.
The facility will work 13 times faster than the current system, enabling detailed, UK-wide forecast models with a resolution of 1.5km to be run every single hour, rather than every three.
It will be built in Exeter during 2015 and become operational next September.

So I would assume that its sept 2016.
 
I assume so! The ladies were quite excited by its imminent arrival but haven't said much about it recently. Dunno why they can't use an app like the rest of us have to!!! :D
 
crofter said:
Obviously needs a new seaweed drive.
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I guess that would that be a "floppy" drive ?
As they they need all the kelp they can get :D
 
I don't know why I look at the weather on the tv or online. I'm sure someone sits there filling out a report saying err, it will be sunny, with maybe some wind and there could be snow in the odd place. There will be torrential rain in the north and the south and the east and the west, of Watford.
Temperatures will range from -12 in Aberdeen to 39 in Gravesend.

The only thing that gets the weather right for me 95% of the time in my Radio Controlled Weather Thingamajig. I just looked and tomorrow will be....... Friday :D
 
"when did weather forecasters get so damned accurate?"

Since 16th October 1987 :)
 
Sat with the back door open, lovely cool breeze coming in. I would love it to rain.
 
Steep said:
"when did weather forecasters get so damned accurate?"

Since 16th October 1987 :)
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That, where more sea-based observation points were introduced afterwards, obviously along with computer technology becoming faster at data crunching.

What the general public need to realise is that the UK is a huge place when it comes to our weather, especially in a showery set up where one area could be experiencing a deluge while an area only a couple of miles away would remain high and dry - and then vice versa ten minutes later. Even if the computer models are being dead on accurate in terms of predicting the weather over the next few hours as they perform millions of calculations several times per day - and not just at surface level but at several different layers in the troposphere (850 hpa = 1 km asl, 500 hpa = 5 km, 300 = 9 km - usually where the jet stream is located, etc, etc). The most difficult part is trying to inform every single person and their dog as conditions changes by the hour so everything tend to be covered in a broad brush kind of way by the media.
The best way to go about it is to keep an eye on radar images and cloud cover taken from satellite and learn where that patch of rain is headed and whether it'll decay or intensify in doing so - even I struggle with that and I've been into meteorology on an amateur level for the best part of 40 years. Sometimes it even pay to rely on good old fashioned know-how by simply looking out the window and understanding cloud types.
 
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Skyline said:
he only thing that gets the weather right for me 95% of the time in my Radio Controlled Weather Thingamajig. I just looked and tomorrow will be....... Friday :D
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Even thats wrong, tomorrow is Monday :D
 
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