Uk Meto

[Mondy]

Have pondered this question quite often recently during the cold snap.

Do you think the Meto have "little moles" checking out Netweather forums to get a concise opinion of how they are doing / forecasting?

To be clear, a lot of their recent warnings/alerts were either off the ball, plain wrong or updated as an "event" was unfolding. Other times they were on the button.

Do you have faith in the Meto anymore? Could they improve? Is the UK coverage as a whole suffice?

Should there be Welsh, Northern Ireland, Scottish Met offices instead?

[Cookie]

Have pondered this question quite often recently during the cold snap.

Do you think the Meto have "little moles" checking out Netweather forums to get a concise opinion of how they are doing / forecasting?

To be clear, a lot of their recent warnings/alerts were either off the ball, plain wrong or updated as an "event" was unfolding. Other times they were on the button.

Do you have faith in the Meto anymore? Could they improve? Is the UK coverage as a whole suffice?

Should there be Welsh, Northern Ireland, Scottish Met offices instead?

yes their should be separate ones.

[Guest]

Why all this antipathy against the Met Office, they get it wrong some times but so does everybody else. Meteorology is an imprecise science with so many variables.

[Methuselah]

When it snows - blame the MetO. When it doesn't snow - blame the MetO...They don't make the weather!

[Mondy]

If you read the topic correctly, you'll see it's not having a dig at the Meto. There are questions within.

[trickydicky]

Have pondered this question quite often recently during the cold snap.

Do you think the Meto have "little moles" checking out Netweather forums to get a concise opinion of how they are doing / forecasting?

To be clear, a lot of their recent warnings/alerts were either off the ball, plain wrong or updated as an "event" was unfolding. Other times they were on the button.

Do you have faith in the Meto anymore? Could they improve? Is the UK coverage as a whole suffice?

Should there be Welsh, Northern Ireland, Scottish Met offices instead?

How would having seperate Met Offices in any way help? All it would do is divide resources and knowledge so as a sum they would all add up to less than what we have now. The regions on the maps go into enough detail, its not as if you only get warnings for the whole of Scotland and by street in London. They do a decent job, the cold snap just gone/going was a tough one and people are always saying on here that judging precipitation always comes down to the last 24hrs. I reckon its maybe also a case of it being a new type of weather event for a lot of the staff, when was the last time we had such a prolonged period of almost daily snow events, the old hands who were used to such stuff have probably all retired!

Edited February 13, 2009 by trickydicky

[johnholmes]

the old hands who were used to such stuff have probably all retired!

indeed we have!

and yes predicting snow accurately has always and probably, in our climate, always will be very difficult.

I sent a pm to one member showing a simple explanation, or I thought it was.

Summer, will it rain, look at the chart, yes/no, assuming its correct, much or not a lot

snow

do as above plus check

zero isotherm

850mb temperatures

1000-850mb thicknesses

1000-500mb thicknesses

dewpoint

wet bulb

evaporative cooling effect

air temperature

and what changes in any of the above through the possible snow event

does show the problem I think?

Edited February 13, 2009 by johnholmes