So called weather reports

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Plax

Guru
Location
Wales
Just looked at Met Office Weather for my area - Medium level cloud and some mist ("frosty start to the day and frost and patchy freezing fog that has forming in the valleys will lift in the early morning sunshine") no mention of rain.
Then checked out the BBC weather and it says it's predominantly going to be heavy rain????
What's that all about then - I'm beginning to think all weather forecasters are liars!
Think I'll go with the met office report judging by the weather the last couple of days.
 
Trust MetCheck - IME they are almost spot on, most of the time.
 
Plax said:
I'm beginning to think all weather forecasters are liars!

Where have you been all your adult life?
Have you ever known of, or heard about, accurate and reliable weather forecasts? ;)
They've been pulling the wool over our eyes for decades, and just cos they've got all these flash maps and images, and hi-tech satellites and computer stuff etc., they think we believe them even more.
Well, it's a load of tosh, I tell you, a load of tosh. :smile: (:tongue:)

Best bet is to just look out the window, or phone a friend and ask them what the weather is like, just before it approaches your area. :smile:
 

BentMikey

Rider of Seolferwulf
Location
South London
Metcheck is good, as is looking out the window and on the metoffice rain radar. It's also not worth relying on weather forecasts that are for more than perhaps 6 hours in advance. It always makes me laugh when someone talks about the forecast for the weekend, when it's 3 or 4 days to go.
 
During WWII, one of the uses to which Bletchley Park was put was decyphering the German weather reports (actual reports of how the weather was there and then) on a daily basis. This info was then given to Bomber Command to enable them to plan sorties.

Amazing that throughout the war, the German confidence in Enigma was so high, that they never once considered that it might have been broken. A lesson for those who believe that technology will cure all problems.

As a side note, several field commanders believed that such use of enemy intelligence was unsporting, and wouldn't act on the information that the code-breakers sent them.
 

Tynan

Veteran
Location
e4
Enigma was cracked early on and the Germans suspected it had been, they then put in an improvement that they considered unbreakable, it was cracked again and read everything thereafter
 

Maz

Guru
I heard today was going to be summery.
Bloke on the radio said 'Here's the weather summary'.
 

mrben

New Member
Location
Glasgow
The BBC weather report online has always been a little bit dodgy - I tend to prefer http://uk.weather.com
 

Road Fiddler

New Member
Netweather is beter than Metcheck but then i was a forecaster for them. The guys at met check are quite switched on and they use the same data as we do.

On a forecasting note we look at data up to 380 hours and after that the data is known as fantasy island, but that is only to look at data trends.
 

Amanda P

Legendary Member
I always suspect the forecaster's confidence in his or her own forecast when he spends the first half of the time allotted talking about what the weather has been doing. We know what it's been doing - we were there!

They only do it so they don't have to spend so much time trying to convince us they have any idea what it might do next.

One or two of the BBC's radio forecasters are particularly guilty of this trick.
 

Road Fiddler

New Member
Uncle Phil said:
I always suspect the forecaster's confidence in his or her own forecast when he spends the first half of the time allotted talking about what the weather has been doing. We know what it's been doing - we were there!

They only do it so they don't have to spend so much time trying to convince us they have any idea what it might do next.

One or two of the BBC's radio forecasters are particularly guilty of this trick.

Your right in some respects.

A lot of TV and radio forecasters are not actually forecasters but presenters and it is normal for a forecaster to only give around 70 or 80% accuracy as they are forecasting for a large are for many people.
 
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