In article ,
Martin wrote:

The Dutch Met Office does but they try to cover the whole country with
just one forecast.

That's reasonable, given its size and lack of terrain, but they
really should have some adjustments for the times and probabilities
that a front is passing through or hovering there.

Temperatures between the north and south and between the coast and the
east can very different.

Other than due to the qualifications I mention above, not really.
The whole country's no larger than the south-eastern corner of
England, and the weather is no more variable over it.

Sort of. It was because Old Fred had many decades of experience for
that particular location, and used his subconscious. The general
forecasts were based on the science, which was basic, and the data,
which was almost non-existent. They were little better than crude
guesswork.

Experimental long range forecasting was 51% correct. Short range was
much better than pure luck. Observations were made several times a day
at many locations in UK and all over Europe and on three weather ships
that were stationed mid Atlantic.

Heck - I can do much better than pure luck, using no equipment and
no calculation! It wasn't until the satellites that even the short-
term forecast became significantly better than "The same as the day
before". And THAT is the fair test.

The forecaster mentally compared the current situation with what the
forecaster remembered happening next, when the situation occurred on
previous occasions. The forecasters on airfields didn't spend their
lives in one location. It's a long time ago but AFAIR they spent
around three years before moving somewhere else. On the weather ships
it was less than three years.

The former is what I said. I will take your word for the latter!

My first job, in 1966, was physically within the Met. Office, and I
was programming a Mercury. It was completely inadequate for anything
as tricky as a forecast, though that was the sort of programming I
was trying to do.

When I left in 1964, they already had a KDF9. The Mercury was used
for modeling

And it wasn't powerful enough even for that. In one of my courses,
I point out that my hearing aids are 10,000 times more powerful
than a Mercury, and a damn sight less than 10,000th of the size!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 2013-08-28 19:03:36 +0100, Jake said:

On Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:48:09 +0100, Sacha
wrote:


Ye gods - it's the Grand Inqusitor Show here! ;-) He'd gone to see a
member of the family so when it was time to come home he made a dash
for the car and got soaked there at *that* house and this was added to
by the few paces from his car to our front door here at *this* house.
Whew! I hope I've now established I don't make him go outside and stand
in the rain just because it's fun!

And there was I merely thinking that you'd quite sensibly asked him to
pop out to the car to get the umbrella you'd left in it so that, if he
needed to go out to the car, he'd be able to use the umbrella to stay
dry.

You lead a very convoluted life! ;-))
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On 2013-08-28 19:44:51 +0100, David Hill said:

On 28/08/2013 18:48, Sacha wrote:
On 2013-08-28 17:26:07 +0100, David Hill said:

On 28/08/2013 14:47, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 28 Aug 2013 07:00:47 +0100, Sacha wrote:

The very heavy rain stopped after about 10 minutes. Ray came in
soaked
just getting from house to car to house!

Daft bugger, really heavy ran hardly ever lasts that long in this
country, 10 or 15 mins at the most. I just sit in the car and
wait,
enjoying being dry whilst watching it belt down.

What can I say? His ickle wifey was waiting for him. ;-)

I see, say no more. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.

But why did you send Ray out to the car in the first place?

Ye gods - it's the Grand Inqusitor Show here! ;-) He'd gone to see a
member of the family so when it was time to come home he made a dash for
the car and got soaked there at *that* house and this was added to by
the few paces from his car to our front door here at *this* house. Whew!
I hope I've now established I don't make him go outside and stand in the
rain just because it's fun!
Well we know what some wifes are like, "Oh could you just pop out and
get so and so from the car I forgot it", and we do wory about Ray,

You wait - just wait....! ;-) In the rain
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On 28/08/2013 23:40, Sacha wrote:
On 2013-08-28 19:44:51 +0100, David Hill said:

On 28/08/2013 18:48, Sacha wrote:
On 2013-08-28 17:26:07 +0100, David Hill said:

On 28/08/2013 14:47, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 28 Aug 2013 07:00:47 +0100, Sacha wrote:

The very heavy rain stopped after about 10 minutes. Ray came in
soaked
just getting from house to car to house!

Daft bugger, really heavy ran hardly ever lasts that long in this
country, 10 or 15 mins at the most. I just sit in the car and
wait,
enjoying being dry whilst watching it belt down.

What can I say? His ickle wifey was waiting for him. ;-)

I see, say no more. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.

But why did you send Ray out to the car in the first place?

Ye gods - it's the Grand Inqusitor Show here! ;-) He'd gone to see a
member of the family so when it was time to come home he made a dash for
the car and got soaked there at *that* house and this was added to by
the few paces from his car to our front door here at *this* house. Whew!
I hope I've now established I don't make him go outside and stand in the
rain just because it's fun!
Well we know what some wifes are like, "Oh could you just pop out and
get so and so from the car I forgot it", and we do wory about Ray,

You wait - just wait....! ;-) In the rain
Who do you think I am?
Enry igins?

On 2013-08-29 09:50:45 +0100, David Hill said:

On 28/08/2013 23:40, Sacha wrote:
On 2013-08-28 19:44:51 +0100, David Hill said:

On 28/08/2013 18:48, Sacha wrote:
On 2013-08-28 17:26:07 +0100, David Hill said:

On 28/08/2013 14:47, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 28 Aug 2013 07:00:47 +0100, Sacha wrote:

The very heavy rain stopped after about 10 minutes. Ray came in
soaked
just getting from house to car to house!

Daft bugger, really heavy ran hardly ever lasts that long in this
country, 10 or 15 mins at the most. I just sit in the car and
wait,
enjoying being dry whilst watching it belt down.

What can I say? His ickle wifey was waiting for him. ;-)

I see, say no more. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.

But why did you send Ray out to the car in the first place?

Ye gods - it's the Grand Inqusitor Show here! ;-) He'd gone to see a
member of the family so when it was time to come home he made a dash for
the car and got soaked there at *that* house and this was added to by
the few paces from his car to our front door here at *this* house. Whew!
I hope I've now established I don't make him go outside and stand in the
rain just because it's fun!
Well we know what some wifes are like, "Oh could you just pop out and
get so and so from the car I forgot it", and we do wory about Ray,

You wait - just wait....! ;-) In the rain
Who do you think I am?
Enry igins?

You're Welsh. You can't possibly sing that badly! ;-)
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

In article ,
Martin wrote:

The Dutch Met Office does but they try to cover the whole country with
just one forecast.

That's reasonable, given its size and lack of terrain, but they
really should have some adjustments for the times and probabilities
that a front is passing through or hovering there.

Temperatures between the north and south and between the coast and the
east can very different.

Other than due to the qualifications I mention above, not really.
The whole country's no larger than the south-eastern corner of
England, and the weather is no more variable over it.

It's not the area, but the shape that makes the difference.

The extreme north is on the same latitude as Sheffield the extreme
south is on the same latitude as Bournemouth
The east can have continental weather whilst the west has Atlantic
weather.
The north can be bitterly cold and dry, whilst the south is wet and
warm.
The coast is in two Met Office Sea Areas.

All of that is true of East Anglia, and the reasons are as I said.
Weather fronts can be quite sharp.

Sort of. It was because Old Fred had many decades of experience for
that particular location, and used his subconscious. The general
forecasts were based on the science, which was basic, and the data,
which was almost non-existent. They were little better than crude
guesswork.

Experimental long range forecasting was 51% correct. Short range was
much better than pure luck. Observations were made several times a day
at many locations in UK and all over Europe and on three weather ships
that were stationed mid Atlantic.

Heck - I can do much better than pure luck, using no equipment and
no calculation! It wasn't until the satellites that even the short-
term forecast became significantly better than "The same as the day
before". And THAT is the fair test.

That was the comment made when the figure for long range forecast
accuracy was provided to parliament.

And it's true, so please don't compare against pure luck. That's a
political trick, not science.

I've sailed all my life. The weather is often not the same where I
live and where I keep my boat 60 miles north of where I live. It is
almost always far windier where I keep my boat.

Sigh. I have worked with meteorologists (loosely, but in several
contexts) and in related areas, over many decades. Such variations
are common, and they are entirely due to either microclimate or
the weather front effect I mention above.

The forecaster mentally compared the current situation with what the
forecaster remembered happening next, when the situation occurred on
previous occasions. The forecasters on airfields didn't spend their
lives in one location. It's a long time ago but AFAIR they spent
around three years before moving somewhere else. On the weather ships
it was less than three years.

The former is what I said.

You said decades.

Yes. Decades of experience.

I will take your word for the latter!

My first job, in 1966, was physically within the Met. Office, and I
was programming a Mercury. It was completely inadequate for anything
as tricky as a forecast, though that was the sort of programming I
was trying to do.

When I left in 1964, they already had a KDF9. The Mercury was used
for modeling

And it wasn't powerful enough even for that.

Depending in the model.

That is simply wrong. Did YOU use one for atmospheric modelling?
Because I did. And the task that I was tackling was vastly simpler
than weather prediction.

In one of my courses,
I point out that my hearing aids are 10,000 times more powerful
than a Mercury, and a damn sight less than 10,000th of the size!

On the other hand it was amazing what could be done in the 1960s with
mini computers with 16K memories and 1Mhz cycle and slower times, that
were coded in assembler and didn't have large general purpose bloated
operating systems in them.

Multiple deep sighs. You are corresponding with someone who did just
that - except that it wasn't assembler on the Mercury, but machine
code, in octal. Also, from your postings, I doubt that you know the
science involved - I don't claim to, but I do know enough to know
that the correct science couldn't be modelled even on a KDF9, let
alone a Mercury. Having to use known unrealistic models to fit
within the resources available was part of the problem, right up
until the 1980s.

This is getting ridiculous, so I shall stop here.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Wednesday, 28 August 2013 18:48:09 UTC+1, Sacha wrote:
On 2013-08-28 17:26:07 +0100, David Hill said:



On 28/08/2013 14:47, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Wed, 28 Aug 2013 07:00:47 +0100, Sacha wrote:



The very heavy rain stopped after about 10 minutes. Ray came in

soaked

just getting from house to car to house!



Daft bugger, really heavy ran hardly ever lasts that long in this

country, 10 or 15 mins at the most. I just sit in the car and

wait,

enjoying being dry whilst watching it belt down.



What can I say? His ickle wifey was waiting for him. ;-)



I see, say no more. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.



But why did you send Ray out to the car in the first place?



Ye gods - it's the Grand Inqusitor Show here! ;-) He'd gone to see a

member of the family so when it was time to come home he made a dash

for the car and got soaked there at *that* house and this was added to

by the few paces from his car to our front door here at *this* house.

Whew! I hope I've now established I don't make him go outside and stand

in the rain just because it's fun!

--



Sacha

www.hillhousenursery.com

South Devon

www.helpforheroes.org.uk

I have a feeling you are not telling us all, we have ways of making you talk :-))

On 2013-08-29 10:55:09 +0000, Judith, Massif Central France. said:

On Wednesday, 28 August 2013 18:48:09 UTC+1, Sacha wrote:
On 2013-08-28 17:26:07 +0100, David Hill said:



On 28/08/2013 14:47, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Wed, 28 Aug 2013 07:00:47 +0100, Sacha wrote:



The very heavy rain stopped after about 10 minutes. Ray came in

soaked

just getting from house to car to house!



Daft bugger, really heavy ran hardly ever lasts that long in this

country, 10 or 15 mins at the most. I just sit in the car and

wait,

enjoying being dry whilst watching it belt down.



What can I say? His ickle wifey was waiting for him. ;-)



I see, say no more. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.



But why did you send Ray out to the car in the first place?



Ye gods - it's the Grand Inqusitor Show here! ;-) He'd gone to see a

member of the family so when it was time to come home he made a dash

for the car and got soaked there at *that* house and this was added to

by the few paces from his car to our front door here at *this* house.

Whew! I hope I've now established I don't make him go outside and stand

in the rain just because it's fun!

--



Sacha

www.hillhousenursery.com

South Devon

www.helpforheroes.org.uk

I have a feeling you are not telling us all, we have ways of making you
talk :-))

Yea yeah - we have a stand outside and get soaked, fetish! ;-)
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

But why did you send Ray out to the car in the first place?

Ye gods - it's the Grand Inqusitor Show here! ;-) He'd gone to see a
member of the family so when it was time to come home he made a
dash for
the car and got soaked there at *that* house and this was added to by
the few paces from his car to our front door here at *this* house.
Whew!
I hope I've now established I don't make him go outside and stand
in the
rain just because it's fun!
Well we know what some wifes are like, "Oh could you just pop out and
get so and so from the car I forgot it", and we do wory about Ray,

You wait - just wait....! ;-) In the rain
Who do you think I am?
Enry igins?

You're Welsh. You can't possibly sing that badly! ;-)

Half Welsh and the voice came from the English side.

I have a feeling you are not telling us all, we have ways of making
you talk :-))

Yea yeah - we have a stand outside and get soaked, fetish! ;-)

Something to do with wet T shirts?

This is getting ridiculous, so I shall stop here.


How the hell anyone can forecast our weather is beyond me.
Here this morning we had a drizzle with a few heavy showers, but about
half a mile away as the crow flies on the M4 below us it was bone dry,
but within 2 miles I was back on wet roads.
So who's forecast would have been right?
On the way back from the hospital just 4 miles away I drove through
heavy rain shower, but back here the ground was bone dry.
That's why we always talk about the weather.
As was said many, many years ago, "In Britain we don't have a climate,
we just have weather."
David @ a very confused side of Swansea Bay

In article ,
David Hill wrote:

This is getting ridiculous, so I shall stop here.

How the hell anyone can forecast our weather is beyond me.
Here this morning we had a drizzle with a few heavy showers, but about
half a mile away as the crow flies on the M4 below us it was bone dry,
but within 2 miles I was back on wet roads.
So who's forecast would have been right?
On the way back from the hospital just 4 miles away I drove through
heavy rain shower, but back here the ground was bone dry.

That is precisely why better predictions would be more probabilistic,
such as:

Swansea Bay. Patchy light rain and occasional heavy showers,
with a 60% chance of any precipitation and a 5% chance of 4-6 mm
of precipitation. More than 10 mm anywhere is unlikely.

With that, you know what to expect. You may not know what any
one location will get, but that is not predictable (even in theory).

I have observed the effect you describe cycling back from work,
which is a mere 3.5 miles away.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 2013-08-29 14:14:31 +0100, David Hill said:


But why did you send Ray out to the car in the first place?

Ye gods - it's the Grand Inqusitor Show here! ;-) He'd gone to see a
member of the family so when it was time to come home he made a
dash for
the car and got soaked there at *that* house and this was added to by
the few paces from his car to our front door here at *this* house.
Whew!
I hope I've now established I don't make him go outside and stand
in the
rain just because it's fun!
Well we know what some wifes are like, "Oh could you just pop out and
get so and so from the car I forgot it", and we do wory about Ray,

You wait - just wait....! ;-) In the rain
Who do you think I am?
Enry igins?

You're Welsh. You can't possibly sing that badly! ;-)

Half Welsh and the voice came from the English side.

Oh naturally! ;-)
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 16:00:14 +0200, Martin wrote:

I have a feeling you are not telling us all, we have ways of
making
you talk :-))

Yea yeah - we have a stand outside and get soaked, fetish! ;-)

Not dressed in shiny rubber?

Naw, just a T shirt.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 2013-08-29 18:10:33 +0100, Dave Liquorice said:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 16:00:14 +0200, Martin wrote:

I have a feeling you are not telling us all, we have ways of
making
you talk :-))

Yea yeah - we have a stand outside and get soaked, fetish! ;-)

Not dressed in shiny rubber?

Naw, just a T shirt.

Don't be silly. Ray doesn't own any T shirts!
--

Sacha
South Devon