BBC Focus Magazine

[Froodster]

Some time ago Focus ran an article about a rather eccentric (prof/Dr?), who was remarkably accurate at predicting long range weather forecasts. He did this by studying solar activity and other factors. In spite of his accuracy the meteorological world remained sceptical, mainly (I think) because he was reluctant to share his method.

Does anyone know his name, and I wonder what his forecast was for this summer?

Sorry to be vague about the original article.

[Shadowwolf]

I think Mr M knows the lads name and can enlighten us when he is next about. From what I can recall myself I don't think his recent months proved that accurate, though I could be mistaken.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Piers Corbyn is the ........ (um eccentric?? never) who you are thinking of and on the whole he has been no less inaccurate than the much vaunted Hadley Centre .

PIers
http://www.weatheraction.com/
Hadley
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechan ... leycentre/

[M Paul Lloyd]

It is interesting to note that people are starting to take more notice of potential links between solar activity and the Earth's weather.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8224543.stm

[The Beige Avenger]

a slight drift... recently i've taken to just looking at the position of the jet stream to get a feel of what the weather will be like.

The Sun vs weather thing is hugely over-looked in my book. I had a student doing a poster on global warming and I was asking her about the relationship between the sun and a piece of research I remembered... she informed me that it was poo-pooed...

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well pooed or not I think the worm is turning.

[Jamie]

On the other hand, he's bound to get it right sometimes.

[M Paul Lloyd]

This is true Jamie, the law of averages demands that he must indeed get it right every now and then. Thing is, he gets it right more often than he gets it wrong and besides big corporations and many in the farming industry, fisheries etc pay him good money on a regular basis for his forecasts which earns him a tidy living so he must be doing something right.

To be honest I don't think he feels that he needs to be proved right, if he was than he might very well lose a valuable source of income.

What I do know is, he predicted the recent cooling climate when all the 'experts' said it would continue to get hotter.

[Shadowwolf]

Thing is, he gets it right more often than he gets it wrong...

Perhaps he is currently lucky or it only appears as if it were better. That and the lack of knowledge on what it is he actually uses to determine his forecasts, does cast a level of suspicion that there may be nothing beyond standard meteorology and some marketing at work.

His prediction on cooling was, well fifty fifty, they said warmer so he would predictably choose the opposite.

[Jamie]

Mind you, the CIA World Factbook has a telling entry about the UK weather:

"Climate: Temperate; moderated by prevailing southwest winds over the North Atlantic Current; more than one-half of the days are overcast"

[M Paul Lloyd]

All very good points Mr.S and I can only take the man's word for it that his predictions are made by comparing past weather conditions and receptive sunspot activity (which go back over some three centuries) with those of today, but then again such information is readily available to anyone with sufficient knowledge of the subject and he would be playing a very silly game indeed if he were fraudulently falsifying the results when they could so easily be tested, after all defrauding international corporations is no laughing matter.

As Jamie's post illustrates the British weather is 'variable' to say the least and it is perhaps reasonable that we 'Brits' are quite so accepting of the fact that the much vaunted, and dare I say expensive, MET office can only get it right half of the time and yet Piers Corbyn, who operates on a relative shoestring is seen as some sort of crank because he can only get it right half the time?

To top this off I would like to draw your attention to the recent report that it is now thought that their may actually be a link between sunspot activity and rainfall over the Pacific Ocean.

See here for more.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8224543.stm

[Shadowwolf]

I had a bit of a further look and it seems the source on accuracy is largely himself; he also places bets that are placed as a vote of confidence in his own ability to predict, but these are uncheckable so meaningless beyond a marketing gimmick.

Given that he spends his time looking at and examining the weather then there is bound to be some familiarity with its workings but there does not appear to be any impressive level of accuracy in prediction. I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary myself and no real point in predicting the days weather a year in advance, at least none I can see.

[Shadowwolf]

but then again such information is readily available to anyone with sufficient knowledge of the subject and he would be playing a very silly game indeed if he were fraudulently falsifying the results...

I don't think there is anything willful being perpetrated, but it is very easy to misinterpret data when a particular outcome is sought or an ability believed to exist.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well I cannot argue his case other than to say that many farmers like to have some advanced warning of what sort of weather the coming year may have in store, also major construction works and road building firms have a vested interest in what the outdoor working conditions may be like some months in advance. What they need to know do they have to invest in sun screen or waterproofs, will flooding be a problem or dust? It may sound trivial enough but such things can amount to big bucks being saved (for profit) in the long run.

He may be a crank I cannot say otherwise, but given that he seems, at least on the face of things, to be no less inaccurate than the mighty MET Office then I think he deserves his slice of the action.

Goodness knows fortune tellers and tarot readers seem to do ok.

[Froodster]

Piers Corbyn is the ........ (um eccentric?? never) who you are thinking of and on the whole he has been no less inaccurate than the much vaunted Hadley Centre .

PIers
http://www.weatheraction.com/
Hadley
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechan ... leycentre/

Thanks for the links - I spent some time failing to find these! Apologies also to Mr Corbyn for describing him as an eccentric

[Shadowwolf]

But do the MET charge for their predictions and claim a level of reliability beyond the actual level they provide, as far as I know they do not. Whilst any may be entitled to pursue whatever business interest they have it does not excuse them from any analysis of claims made by them regardless of what their oppositions track record in the field is. Hiding ones methodology only casts further doubt over what is going on.

Goodness knows fortune tellers and tarot readers seem to do ok.

They may do though that would not make their abilities anymore real nor any knowing misdirection okay.

I'm not shooting flak at your good self Mr M and don't expect you to explain the guy or his methods, I'm just skeptical is all at this moment.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I'm all for some healthy scepticism Mr.S

As for funding of the MET Office, well it comes out of our taxes, to the tune of some £83 million per annum which works out at about £1.40 for each and every head of population in the UK and I have to say that is very good value for money but I also find that despite having rather magnificent resources to hand they are hopelessly inaccurate.
For example they predicted that this would be a long hot summer and yet it has been one of the coolest and wettest for years and over half of all the local, short term, predictions made about our (UK) weather were highly inaccurate.
I fully realise that the Earth's climate is a very complex and ever changing system so much so that I am very much in awe of anyone who feels that they understand it let alone be able to predict what may happen in the next few days, but really considering how long it has been studied (the Babylonians first attempted local weather forecasting cira 650 bc) things have progressed painfully slowly.

Of course you could always try this. http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?acti ... ange;sess=