Nowcasting and the BBC Weather Forecast on the News Channel

[Bruce]

Hi

It never ceases to amaze me that when the Met Office have issued yellow and amber warnings (and we're in the middle of such an event with the heavy rain now), the presenter merrily marches on with the forecast rainfall for this afternoon and giving more details of whats happening in 36 hours rather than now.

Its still this morning! We have a very good rainfall radar system so why not display the latest frames and see how things are developing in the real world?

I know the difference between reality might be be at variance with how the model see's it - but we don't seemed to have learned from the Boscastle event of 2004 when Michael Fish was going on about the high temperatures in Greece whilst a flash flood was occurring in Devon.

Bruce.

[Dartmoor Will]

"Bruce" <br...@xmetman.co.uk> wrote in message
news:409ef5a5-865c-41dc...@googlegroups.com...

=======================

Well said Bruce. The trouble is that the MetO is not geared up to presenting
nowcasting information. They have the information but they don't do it and
I'll tell you why. Basically there's no money in it.
In 1996 the MetO became a trading fund and had to start making a profit.
This then, in my view, started the long road to the decline of the Met
Office we oldies used to love and cherish, a Met Office providing services
to the public, services which all now have to be budgeted for and paid for
via an umbrella fund called the public weather service. Nobody (with cash)
has been persuaded for nowcasting outputs to be shown routinely (or even
non-routinely), so no money - no show. Same with all other outputs, when
money becomes available work is done, when it is not then the MetO will not
do anything out of service. A perfect example of this is the observers
handbook. That was never updated because there is no revenue in doing it. We
are lucky that we have the likes of Stephen Burt to just get up and do it,
otherwise there would remain nothing. Same with the observation network, why
do you think we have practically lost all professional human observers now -
money. Why did we close the Weather Centres - money. Why do we put up with
the BBC cutting presentation time - money. I could go on .......

Will
--
http://www.lyneside.demon.co.uk/Haytor/automatic/Current_Vantage_Pro.htm
Will Hand (Haytor, Devon, 1017 feet asl)
---------------------------------------------

[Metman2012]

Of course, the reason there was (and is) no money is that we�ve had
�conservative� governments since 1979, whose mantra is 'private is good,
public is bad'. When I joined the Met Office, most staff were employed
in �weather� � forecasting, observing or analysing, now most staff are
employed in �non-weather� tasks, marketing, selling, IT development
(including websites!), HR. Most CEs have done a good job. But like Dr
Beeching did a good job for the railways � problem was (and is) it was
(and is) the wrong job. However, will we ever get back to centre left
governments who have sensible policies about what should be in the
private sector and what in the public? It�s not obvious to me that the
private sector is the be all and end all and indeed, they often seem to
screw up on the public service side (G4S, care homes � oh and bankers
too (;)>).
Will, when blowing the whistle on the Met Office, remember that many of
your old colleagues are doing good jobs under difficult circumstances �
your point in another thread about older staff being given pay cuts � I
actually heard an HR person state that older staff were overpaid and
weren�t worth the money � and it was expressed as baldly as that.
Malcolm

[Roy Avis]

"Dartmoor Will" <wi...@lyneside.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7Myds.273277$qe5.2...@fx26.am4...

And that's why I took early retirement in 1999 - any visionary thought you
might have had, died in a plethora of meetings and business cases!

Roy (the Beard) Avis
Bracknell Weather at: http://www.weatherfamily.org/bracknell

[Dartmoor Will]

"Metman2012" <furiou...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:k56fd6$djf$1...@news.albasani.net...

> Of course, the reason there was (and is) no money is that we’ve had
> ‘conservative’ governments since 1979, whose mantra is 'private is good,

> public is bad'. When I joined the Met Office, most staff were employed in

> ‘weather’ – forecasting, observing or analysing, now most staff are
> employed in ‘non-weather’ tasks, marketing, selling, IT development

> (including websites!), HR. Most CEs have done a good job. But like Dr

> Beeching did a good job for the railways – problem was (and is) it was

> (and is) the wrong job. However, will we ever get back to centre left
> governments who have sensible policies about what should be in the private

> sector and what in the public? It’s not obvious to me that the private

> sector is the be all and end all and indeed, they often seem to screw up

> on the public service side (G4S, care homes – oh and bankers too (;)>).

> Will, when blowing the whistle on the Met Office, remember that many of

> your old colleagues are doing good jobs under difficult circumstances –
> your point in another thread about older staff being given pay cuts – I
> actually heard an HR person state that older staff were overpaid and weren’t
> worth the money – and it was expressed as baldly as that.
> Malcolm
=========================

Hi Malcolm, nice to hear from you again. I share your politics as you know.
I do know that many good folk are still there working very hard under duress
and generally difficult conditions and I support them. My main beef is about
the corporate leadership (from government downwards), it always has been.
The troups just do as they are told basically. As you know I rebelled a few
times and paid the price, I'm just relishing (at last!) the freedom to
express myself with nobody looking over my shoulder. It'll probably pass
soon enough. I have heard many times from HR quarters that some staff are
"overpaid" when what they mean is that the staff have worked so well as to
have *earned* a good income and that they can no longer afford them. I fear
for the younger folk to be honest. The prospects for them are not good.
Working till 70 for pay that will never keep up with the private sector in a
job that is not as secure as it used to be. You and I are the lucky
generation for sure. Perhaps folk are wondering why I am letting this all
out now? Well to be perfectly frank the recent air crash in Nepal has
spooked me a bit (same route, same flight) and I wanted to say my pieces
before I go away in case I never return. Unlikely, but you never know.
However, I don't want to miss a good Dartmoor winter so it really is a case
of "I'll be back!" as opposed to "It was good while it lasted" :-)

Cheers,
Will
--

[Bruce]

Will

I never realised when I posted my comments this morning that we would have another 'Boscastle' like incident today! Admittedly a lot less severe but I think what happened in Clovelly in north Devon underlines my point about nowcasting and the state of weather forecasting in the UK!

What annoys me about both the Met Office and Environment agency is that they actively suppress rainfall information. They have a great deal of hourly totals for hundreds of sites across the UK (a good deal of this is also available as 5 minute accumulations). If the MO don't want to use this information they should at least make it available to the public and allow developers (like me!) to create web applications for mobile devices that combines both past accumulations from gauges and forecast values from mesoscale NWP models to create a dynamic and automatic warnings application that didn't need any human input from a team of forecasters in Exeter...

I don't see much sign of any new innovative thinking from them at the moment but you never know.

Bruce.

[Norman]

Some years ago I had a discussion with one of the chiefs at the Met Office on
the subject on nowcasting. I said that BBC News 24 (as it was then) was an
excellent platform for a nowcasting service for the general public but the Met
Office man wasn't interested. Rather than regurgitating every half hour what
the models are predicting for the next few days the weather service on BBC News
Channel would be much better employed in a nowcasting service on a day like
today where the actual weather is diverging significantly from what the 'party
line' forecasting says.

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.

[Dartmoor Will]

"Norman" <nor...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:adoj1i...@mid.individual.net...

No money in it though, and that's the reason it will probably never happen
:-(

Will
--

[Weatherlawyer]

I've been banging on about the deplorable state of the Met Office and
the BBC for years. So you aught to know that nothing is going to
change.

Anyone who has used the excellent US sites will see the difference
immediately. Even places we regard as second best in regards to the
social services such as Mexico and South American countries are giving
their much fewer citizens output that is on a par with ours.

It's enough to make Robert CMOT FitzRoy to do t all over again.
Come to think of it, it's exactly the same reason he would too.
How come nobody else has had the courage to fall on their swords?

As for air crashes they usually occur when the planet is upset, so you
in the centre of what passes for knowledge here should surely be able
to find a way of forecasting their likelihood in any spell:

Clue x 4:
(Change of Category of tropical storm) n.
I'm not going to tell you any more as it's your arse in the sling if
you get caught, not mine.

[Brian in Aberfeldy]

often the local news traffic reports and cam pictures provide a better picture as they did this morning informing Scotland that Fife was getting badly hit.

brian
aberfeldy