Thanks for the warm welcome guys, it is genuinely much appreciated. Soundtracks on videos: yes AF, I turn the volume off when checking the video for errors, as can’t concentrate otherwise. Still, if folk don’t like the forecast, they might like the music! Embedding: yes, please do. They are in the public domain, folk can do as they wish with them. I just want to open up the debate in the nicest possible way (if I can) Videos: they are a great way of getting one’s point across. For example, it wasn’t until I put together the GFS charts sequentially on the video, that I realised how divergent they were 12 Nov 2010 forecast: yes Timmytour, I had about 9 historic confirmations that it would be as forecasted 25 Dec 2010 forecast: there was only 1 historic confirmation at the time I did the forecast. There was another back in the 1800’s but the data was very sparse. The massive failure re the temperatures and not forecasting the Arctic weather was due to certain elements of the DNA going in and out of sync (between the historic control year and December 2010) – luckily they came together for 25 Dec 2010, otherwise the pressure chart for 00hrs 25 Dec 2010 would have been way off. I think predicting the location of the Low and High pressure systems near Iceland and over the UK respectively, meant for me the 25 Dec 2010 forecast was more satisfying than 12 Nov one. Forecasting the magnitude of the pressure is something I will need to refine. NB: re the pressure for London on the same historic day in the past, two very respected and well known sources gave two different pressure levels, one gave 1045mb and the other 1040mb (unfortunately I took the higher and my forecasted level was further out!) 19 Dec 2010: Did cock up the low for 00hrs 19 Dec 2010, thinking it would be at circa 70N where it was around 50N! That was due to DNA’s being out of sync again, I wouldn’t have known that point had I not made the error. Thanks for the FAX chart for 17 Dec 2010 Snooz, seems it happened then; I shall have a wee look in due course at the configurations and fathom precisely where I went wrong. NB: due to shortage of time, I did not “number crunch†my 19 Dec forecast to find precisely the location of a low (will sort out a wee model on excel to do the calculations quickly). Still, 18/19 Dec 2010 was the turning point for the pressure as expected and it rose to its top on 25 Dec 2010. The pressure for London, for example, on 19 Dec was circa 990mb and it rose to very close to 1030 on 25 Dec (and has been falling on 26-27 Dec). Long/short term forecasting: for me, using the method I use, timescales are not the issue. That is, to make a forecast for a precise day next month will be just as “accurate†or “difficult to get accurateâ€, as forecasting a specific day in 1, 10, 15, 20, 50, 100, 200 years time. The quality/accuracy of the forecast is not dependent upon the distance ahead in the future, but: (i) the accuracy of the weather data for the historic control day(s); (ii) the integrity of my DNA values; and (iii) being able to find historic control days where the DNA did “match up†with the target day in the future, but also with all the days before and after (this is what I have learnt this month). That is, find a historic period in of time where the DNA’s do not go in and out of sync. Such situations maybe very far apart in time and detailed historic weather records are hard to come by. Demonstrating forecasts 100 years in time: yes, it is difficult to go forwards 100 years and realise that one was right with the forecast! But, one can go backwards! Say today we had 100mph winds across London. I can look at the DNA for today (and surrounding days) and then sort my database and find the same DNA for a historical target day in the past (and of course the surrounding days); this may be say 100 years ago, if the method works, when I finally get the weather records for that historic day, we should also see approximately 100mph winds across London. If they are not there, the method is wrong or an error on my part has been made. So testing can be made re large distances in time (going backwards). Learning: as I have said, I am in the infancy of this and still learning. For years I did think that stock market traders were the luckiest people to witness the unravelling of nature in front of them (using the price/time charts), but I now know that weather observers are the luckiest, as you have objective data going back for centuries and its 24/7, the markets are only open during week days and only for about circa 6 hours! The study of the weather has really made my life a lot easier in understanding how the rhythms of nature work.
