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Britain Met Office gives up on long-term weather forecasts

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#1
BagOfCrisps

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Quote:
Britain was in for a season of mildness, the Met Office announced, shortly before the coldest winter in 31 years. That followed the prediction of a barbecue summer that went on to leave the nation with some very soggy sausages.

Now the Met Office is to abandon the seasonal forecasts that have brought it so much recent humiliation.

While the move will be seen inevitably as a climbdown, the Met Office insists that it comes after widespread public polling over the past few months.

“All our research shows that the public aren’t interested in seasonal weather forecasts, but they do want a monthly forecast, which we’ll be running on our website,” an official said.


If they quite because of lack of success in their forecasting, we will soon be getting not much more than "what it will be doing in 10 minutes" forecasts. And that will be wrong too!

lol

Question: are forecasts better in some countries than others? And why? Is it the technology used, or something that makes the weather moe unpredictable?
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#2
JA

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Global warming making the predictions less reliable?

I dunno, just a thought.
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#3
quattro

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Originally Posted By: JA
Global warming making the predictions less reliable?

I dunno, just a thought.


Global warming has been debunked. They just never got the message so there predictions were off. lol
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#4
TubbyBeaverinho

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The UK Met Office absolutley suck at predicting the weather......they couldn't predict the colour of their socks in the morning!! I reckon Chimps would be able to do a better job than the Muppets at the Met Office. Japan's weather predictions seem to be pretty damn good...the daily ones anyway. Often they'll say things like it'll be sunny till about 2pm and then it'll rain and lo and behold, around 2pm the clouds gather and the heavens open.
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#5
MikePow

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The Met Office forecasts for the Brecon Beacons National Park have been spot since September 2009.

#6
Go Native

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Originally Posted By: MikePow
The Met Office forecasts for the Brecon Beacons National Park have been spot since September 2009.

lol

#7
MikePow

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No joking. They've been excellent.

So too the Welsh weather on BBC media.

#8
BagOfCrisps

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Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver
The UK Met Office absolutley suck at predicting the weather......they couldn't predict the colour of their socks in the morning!! I reckon Chimps would be able to do a better job than the Muppets at the Met Office. Japan's weather predictions seem to be pretty damn good...the daily ones anyway. Often they'll say things like it'll be sunny till about 2pm and then it'll rain and lo and behold, around 2pm the clouds gather and the heavens open.


They control the weather, that's why. slap
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#9
thursday

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how does one predict the colour of one's socks?

#10
thursday

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I have white ones and black ones.

#11
rach

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When I am back in the UK the forecast always seems to be cloudy, with sunny period and showers. Or just heavy rain. They always seem to get that right, I think they just guess. lol

They do get some stick though don't they. Good to hear that they have actually done a good job there Mike.
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#12
TubbyBeaverinho

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Originally Posted By: thursday
how does one predict the colour of one's socks?


the same way you make any prediction, take a look at the facts and make an educated judgement on what you think its likely to be....so if your socks are only black & white then you have a 1 in 2 chance of a correct prediction right off the bat.....take into account your other clothes and make an educated guess
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#13
Black Mountain

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Mate, you've only got black and white socks? WTF?! How boring is that!
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#14
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Bloody ace weather here though at the moment.
Mr Weather seemsto be saying it might all be over soon.
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#15
Oyuki kigan

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Originally Posted By: quattro


Global warming has been debunked. They just never got the message so there predictions were off. lol


News travels slowly to my parts. When and how did this happen?
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#16
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It didn't....

#17
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The weather reports here are extremely accurate, but they usually go something like this.

Tomorrow will be mostly fine and sunny with the chance of rain showers devoping through the day. Winds will be 5-25 knots from the SW-SE turning NE-NW during the day.
Temperatures will be between 10 and 35 deg.

The older I get. The better I was.

#18
grungy-gonads

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I have also been known to predict earthquakes quite accurately.

Here's my latest:

There will be an earthquake of at least size magnitude 4.5 in eastern Japan before 30th July 2010. Please take all necessary precautions.

thumbsup
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#19
Black Mountain

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Sounds as accurate as my Saturday night predictions:

High likelihood of several beers followed by a moderate chance of gin and tonic developing into either late night dancing or karaoke. Sunday morning activities will range between making coffee, rubbing temples and reading the paper through blurry eyes. Probability of afternoon napping remains high.
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#20
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gg tells his mum too so that no-one can claim he is making up his predictions wink
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