Better Than The Models ?

[snowray]

Hi MB

Only started following this thread today and will now be a reguar, its great to see all these experimental theories like yours and Brian & Rogers, I do believe that we still have a hell of a lot to learn.

I dont claim to understand your method but you obviously have a great deal of knowledge, and someone who observes and can identify trends. Saw your comments re the DNA of Weather paterns, I find this interesting since I have had the feeling for some time now of this unique quality that you describe. For example, when I'm in Italy I live in an area with the most superb views of mountains across the valley, I have seen some very strange things in the sky at night but what I love best is the sunsets over there. it occued to me that i have never seen 2 sunsets that have been exactly the same. It also occued to me that in the greater scheme of things this uniqueness is in fact infinate, since the Sun, the moon, the planets will always be in different positions ad infinitum.

But I never realy thought about reoccuring paterns as such until I heard about Terrence Mckenna's Timewave zero, and then did some research on how the cycles of the moon seem to not just effect the tides!

So good luck with your work and keep us posted.

Snowray

Edited January 26, 2011 by snowray

[30gm2m]

I don't understand the sarcasm directed towards MurcieBoy, he makes a VERY bold forecast which will stand or fall by the 5th of February. He provides no evidence or explanation for the forecast so we have no way to debunk it, yet. Let us see.

Steve Murr's contribution (minus the pub wind up) is certainly the most pertinant, "where does the energy come from?". Nevertheless, lets just wait and see and then let the dogs off the lead!!

[MurcieBoy]

Hi MB

Only started following this thread today and will now be a reguar, its great to see all these experimental theories like yours and Brian & Rogers, I do believe that we still have a hell of a lot to learn.

I dont claim to understand your method but you obviously have a great deal of knowledge, and someone who observes and can identify trends. Saw your comments re the DNA of Weather paterns, I find this interesting since I have had the feeling for some time now of this unique quality that you describe. For example, when I'm in Italy I live in an area with the most superb views of mountains across the valley, I have seen some very strange things in the sky at night but what I love best is the sunsets over there. it occued to me that i have never seen 2 sunsets that have been exactly the same. It also occued to me that in the greater scheme of things this uniqueness is in fact infinate, since the Sun, the moon, the planets will always be in different positions ad infinitum.

But I never realy thought about reoccuring paterns as such until I heard about Terrence Mckenna's Timewave zero, and then did some research on how the cycles of the moon seem to not just effect the tides!

So good luck with your work and keep us posted.

Snowray

Thanks for your comments. Well, what a day to start reading the thread!

I love Italy too, I enjoy driving the Murcie back to its birthplace in Bologna. Last time I drove to Italy I stayed up in the hills in Montepulciano for part of the time and also at Lake Como (in a lovely hotel where they have classic car concours) - Italy is truly an amazing place; and yes, the skies were stunning!

One of the aims in posting on forums is to get people thinking; so be open minded and follow what you feel is right. Through testing you will get a feel for what works. I always take myself out of the evaluation and allow Nature to verify whether I am on the right lines. Using Nature as your "rail" or "guide" you cannot go wrong.

As you can see, my forecasts are very precise. I need to make them precise, as they are my ruler to compare with the actual. The "variances" will tell me a great deal.

Edited January 26, 2011 by MurcieBoy

[snowray]

Thanks for your comments. Well, what a day to start reading the thread!

I love Italy too, I enjoy driving the Murcie back to its birthplace in Bologna. Last time I drove to Italy I stayed up in the hills in Montepulciano for part of the time and also at Lake Como (in a lovely hotel where they have classic car concours) - Italy is truly an amazing place; and yes, the skies were stunning!

One of the aims in posting on forums is to get people thinking; so be open minded and follow what you feel is right. Through testing you will get a feel for what works. I always take myself out of the evaluation and allow Nature to verify whether I am on the right lines. Using Nature as your "rail" or "guide" you cannot go wrong.

As you can see, my forecasts are very precise. I need to make them precise, as they are my ruler to compare with the actual. The "variances" will tell me a great deal.

Yes I was thinking to myself that your forecasts are indeed very precise, I can see now how you are working this, very good.

My mother is From Parma, not far from Bologna, hence the Italy connection. :-)

[Harsh Climate]

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.

What bugs me is a wild assertion about possible future events which is not based on testable explanations (or at least not in a transparent way). This offends the scientific principle.

Pieman

Great post, sums it up perfectly.

Im suprised at just how many lemmings are jumping on the bandwagon, when its clear to see this is just complete and utter make believe... Like you say, we haven't seen any 'methods' 'explanations' 'in depth theory's', just a forecast from nowhere showing armaggedon in the north sea!

Edited January 26, 2011 by Harsh Climate

[OldMetMan]

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.

What bugs me is a wild assertion about possible future events which is not based on testable explanations (or at least not in a transparent way). This offends the scientific principle.

Pieman

Hmm, I wonder how testable Einstein's theories were at the time he came up with them?

[La Bise]

Woah, can we leave Einstein out of this please...? AB published many papers, for peer review by his fellow mathematicians and they quickly understood the validity of his theories as he worked within the field. Nothing to do with the current situation here.

(Got your pm OMM, back to you asap)

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

What bugs me is a wild assertion about possible future events which is not based on testable explanations (or at least not in a transparent way). This offends the scientific principle.

Pieman

When the time is right the research will be written up for a scientific journal. Please stop trolling this thread with your pompous assertions as to what science is or isn't. He who laughs last laughs hardest. Save yourself for the day. From the look of the models there is no reason to think MB will be exactly right.

MurcieBoy, when Roger J Smith first joined this forum many years ago his first threads were greeted with more indignation than yours have been. Hard to believe it's worse than you are getting but it was for this reason: in contrast with you, Roger faced questioning from almost everyone: "laymen" interested in learning meteorology as well as serious amateur and professional meteorologists.

That must have been especially galling for Roger, because people like me knew barely anything about meteorology and we were passing judgement over Roger who understood both meteorological science and the method he invented himself. Perhaps we did that because we came to netweather to learn something about traditional meteorology (which the newbies hadn't done by then). Either way, today there is a much larger pool of readers who are willing to explore alternative theories.

BTW: I think I speak for many when I say I'm willing to take you (and Roger) at your word(s) that your approach is scientific, and is intended for publication in a peer-reviewed science journal. If I thought you were a hoaxer I could easily ignore the thread.

18z... again similar to your synoptic high pressure / low pressure pattern - broadly the theme is still supported. But as far as a weather forecast for a "Storm" it would fail because the high is too dominant, too far north and east, and there is no wind. Perhaps things will shift south and west by the day

[MurcieBoy]

18z... again similar to your synoptic high pressure / low pressure pattern - broadly the theme is still supported. But as far as a weather forecast for a "Storm" it would fail because the high is too dominant, too far north and east, and there is no wind. Perhaps things will shift south and west by the day

Thanks for the comments. Yes, we shall see as to the "Storm".

As I said in the video: "The degree of intensity is the factor that should be the subject of my follow up appraisal video."

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

We are closing in now and IMO there is no clear model trend or consensus and this will go for another 4-5 days yet. Some ridiculous and abusive comments as ususal and from folk who never lay out a long range forecast themselves and reminds me of bullies with inadequacies...anyway lots to play for and lots to develop.

I'm actually a little excited by this...for me this could be a 'trigger' event whether RJS or MB confirmation....we know where my money is!!

BFTP

Edited January 26, 2011 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[lorenzo]

I think this thread is beautifully timed - albeit nothing to do with the forecast ( or was it.. ) Pantomime Laugh....

A spot of excitement after the dullest model watching comedown of all time, we have just passed the heady heights of a one in 100 year event ! Then went to over the last 3 weeks - The LIMPET ( TM) subsequent to the highs of our early winter ( no pun intended) .

It is a pity that there is some slanging in this thread - but it is good slanging/ debate - it has not lost it's edge, this forecast is a point of interest, simply for one reason - range.

All other factors aside range is key here. Range is key as it exceeds current models however scientifically explicit or dynamic.

Roger S - your analysis is excellent, empirical, scientific - can you abridge this for the likes of us less experienced please, this is not a criticism only I could not interpret and am sure a few others on here couldnt also relate to the plotted numbers grids you were using. A paragraph laymans summary may assist if you can dumb down for us novices please..

MB - I think Steve Murr summed up what a lot of people on here were thinking but were too polite to say, heated banter in model thread aside this is probably the most polite forum you will come across on the www - i.e it is fiction - esp with the charts as they have been and needing a quantum shift.

I do not think this was disrespectful only his 'candid' view on matters, don't let this put you off I have not seen anyone venture an alternative forecast on here as precise at the range you have placed.

My queries are and remain -

1 Safe synoptic - earlier in thread I cited historic lows at decadal instances similar to your depression i .e likely to occur again - from analysis my guess is 960mb sth Iceland on 4th Feb just for the record and I have studied models of weather for less than 2 yrs.

2 Severity ?

3 Unwillingness to discuss method and give ethereal responses to why method should or shouldnt be discussed when there are 12k users fascinated by weather who could contribute, yet the rebuttal is you looked at wheat prices for trading and this gave birth to a passion spawning a wild forecast that took 15 mins in the brain and more time on paper.

For point 3 especially what do you expect our members of 5-10 yrs experience to say when you say nothing..?

Only asking, am devils advocate here...

[OldMetMan]

Two charts from the NOGAPS and UKMO offer a somewhat new direction:

OK, not everyone's favourite model, but it's the first time I have seen any of the models shift the HP south and suggest more of a NW rather than SW jet, which of course gives greater scope for a system or systems to come from that direction .

The UKMO at 120hrs:

This bears a stronger similarity to MB's equivalent chart for that date than hitherto.

Nothing that startingly in either of these I admit but an interesting, if subtle shift,

[lorenzo]

UKMO + 120 looking very familiar.. the plot thickens..

Will any of these verifying remove that damned high !!!

[TEITS]

Well nothing in the model output currently suggests MB forecast will be correct. Here is the ensemble mean from the GEFS.

http://91.121.84.31/modeles/gens/run/gens-21-1-192.png?18

I will point out that if a deep LP system does hit Scandinavia but we have strong W,ly rather than NW,ly winds then this doesn't mean MB forecast is correct. A deep LP system hitting Scandi isn't an unusual occurence in winter. For example if I made a prediction saying on the 10th March HP will be over the UK then in my opinion I would have a 50% chance of being correct.

Don't get me wrong im not knocking this forecast but I noticed MB commented on the 12Z ECM which in my opinion wouldn't bring the severe conditions that MB is forecasting.

[30gm2m]

I read this thread and wonder...... What is it that makes intelligent people attempt to ridicule someone for the only reason that they disagree with what they say? He says "big storm", they say "no......" for many different and sometimes, but not always valid reasons, and thats the point...... But when Einstein's alleged IQ is brought in to this it all turns into a lot of ugly and very unhelpful dog biscuits.

For Christ's sake, judge the man on his forecast and nothing more.... for now.

Not that it matters, but I've been a member and an avid reader of this website for over six years now, and I've found the information here more than helpful on a number of occasions (nod to Steve Murr and Yamkin!!!!).

Anyway, can we please judge MurcieBoys forecast after the proposed dates and not before? I never post so I have to say a big thankyou to the hosts and mods of this site, first call for weather. I raise my glass to you.

Edit........ Dave? The Eye in the Sky...... Really enjoy your posts mate, best thing about this site is seeing you lot making monkey's out of the media!!!! And you do.

Edited January 27, 2011 by grab my graupel
Bypassing the swear filter

[Roger J Smith]

There was a question about the method being used to assess the maps. It actually is fairly simple already, so I can't dumb it down all that much, but here's what is being done:

Looking at MB's maps, they cover an area mainly between 20 deg W and 20 deg E, and from about 45 N to 70 N. So to simplify comparison, I recorded the pressures (on the 3 Feb map) at each 5 deg intersection on that grid, for example, 55N 10W which would be in Donegal Bay. I added a map of my own with only this pressure grid. Now that we are into the 10-day period with reasonably reliable model runs, I am recording each day's output from GFS and ECM on these same grids. Later today (Thursday) we will be looking at the day 7 forecast maps for this validation.

So that leaves the question of how the maps are compared. This is a simple correlation, which is a statistical measure of similarity. You would have to check a statistics textbook for the definitions. But this is widely used in statistics, and runs from values of -1.0 (completely different data) to 1.0 (similar data). By "similar data" we infer a similar pattern, so for example if MB's map looked exactly right but was all 20 mbs lower, it would still correlate at 1.0 -- and presumably the winds would correlate highly too. A correlation of about 0.5 is quite significant in this sort of grid comparison. Even so, the standard definition of the meaning of correlation is this: when you square the correlation co-efficient, that gives you the percentage of variance explained. So even at this relatively high correlation of 0.5, only 25% of variance is explained.

Many highly-complex climate studies investigating temperature or rainfall and solar activity have been done over the years and you quite often see correlation stats of about 0.2 or 0.3 in those, so I've learned over the years in climatology that 0.2 is about the thresh-hold correlation at which anyone will get interested in a linkage, something lower than that is essentially random. A correlation of 0.1 after all explains 1% of the variance.

Highly negative correlations can be useful in hypothesis building -- if you tested your hypothesis and found a correlation of -0.98 you would realize that your guiding theory was reversed from reality. For example, if you were particularly thick and chose to research the notion that beer consumption would increase in cloudy, wet weather and then got a correlation of -0.9 on your study, then you might clue in that beer consumption would increase in sunny, warm weather. So a large negative correlation is not necessarily the worst news in a research study.

But before you ask for the next grant, you might want to change the hypothesis.

[30gm2m]

There was a question about the method being used to assess the maps. It actually is fairly simple already, so I can't dumb it down all that much, but here's what is being done:

Looking at MB's maps, they cover an area mainly between 20 deg W and 20 deg E, and from about 45 N to 70 N. So to simplify comparison, I recorded the pressures (on the 3 Feb map) at each 5 deg intersection on that grid, for example, 55N 10W which would be in Donegal Bay. I added a map of my own with only this pressure grid. Now that we are into the 10-day period with reasonably reliable model runs, I am recording each day's output from GFS and ECM on these same grids. Later today (Thursday) we will be looking at the day 7 forecast maps for this validation.

So that leaves the question of how the maps are compared. This is a simple correlation, which is a statistical measure of similarity. You would have to check a statistics textbook for the definitions. But this is widely used in statistics, and runs from values of -1.0 (completely different data) to 1.0 (similar data). By "similar data" we infer a similar pattern, so for example if MB's map looked exactly right but was all 20 mbs lower, it would still correlate at 1.0 -- and presumably the winds would correlate highly too. A correlation of about 0.5 is quite significant in this sort of grid comparison. Even so, the standard definition of the meaning of correlation is this: when you square the correlation co-efficient, that gives you the percentage of variance explained. So even at this relatively high correlation of 0.5, only 25% of variance is explained.

Many highly-complex climate studies investigating temperature or rainfall and solar activity have been done over the years and you quite often see correlation stats of about 0.2 or 0.3 in those, so I've learned over the years in climatology that 0.2 is about the thresh-hold correlation at which anyone will get interested in a linkage, something lower than that is essentially random. A correlation of 0.1 after all explains 1% of the variance.

Highly negative correlations can be useful in hypothesis building -- if you tested your hypothesis and found a correlation of -0.98 you would realize that your guiding theory was reversed from reality. For example, if you were particularly thick and chose to research the notion that beer consumption would increase in cloudy, wet weather and then got a correlation of -0.9 on your study, then you might clue in that beer consumption would increase in sunny, warm weather. So a large negative correlation is not necessarily the worst news in a research study.

But before you ask for the next grant, you might want to change the hypothesis.

Man, you definitely know your stuff, but do you not think that your last paragraph is patronising or condescending? You have already made your point about the narrow minded scientific community and the alleged conspiracy to stifle new and radical ways of thinking, but the great irony is that you have joined their gang!!!

Can't we just wait and see? Is there any need for someone as you to denigrate MB's forecast? When it goes all tits up, pull it to pieces by all means, but for now as an intelligent man, I am shocked by your attitude and would hazard a guess that MB would be offended by this, after all, its only a forecast. BTW.... I fancy a weeks surfing at Woolacombe Bay at the end of April, surfs up? Sunshine? Anyone???? METO or MurcieBoy or RJS or GFS or....... Toss a coin...... What needs to be remembered is when the forecast was made.........

Edited January 27, 2011 by Osbourne One-Nil
erm....

[Roger J Smith]

Sorry to give the wrong impression there, I was speaking much more generally about negative correlation. It is actually a helpful result in research, more so than zero correlation. But I wasn't pre-judging the MB forecasts. I've seen enough model flip-flops that I wouldn't count out any scenario yet, if there is no shift by day 3 then I suppose they are locked in, but at the moment, the two big models have a lot of spread and so we might expect further changes to occur.

One map doesn't prove that much either, you would want to test a series of 30 days or something extensive to get a handle on a model's regular performance. There is plenty of room to improve the conventional models, we'll see after the fact what the correlations are for each day with reality. That's why this is probably a good thread for people to follow, if nothing else comes of it, you'll get an excellent sample of how the models close in on the eventual solution and what sort of accuracy they have at different time periods. The real value of an alternate forecast method is to understand where it fits into that picture, expecting an alternate method to take over is saying that it will outperform 96h, 72h, even 48h and 24h ... this seems unrealistic to me ... I would be quite happy to get a model working at equivalent to 120-144h.

[osmposm]

Man, you definitely know your stuff, but do you not think that your last paragraph is patronising or condescending? You have already made your point about the narrow minded scientific community and the alleged conspiracy to stifle new and radical ways of thinking, but the great irony is that you have joined their gang!!!

Can't we just wait and see? Is there any need for someone as you to denigrate MB's forecast? When it goes all tits up, pull it to pieces by all means, but for now as an intelligent man, I am shocked by your attitude and would hazard a guess that MB would be offended by this, after all, its only a forecast. BTW.... I fancy a weeks surfing at Woolacombe Bay at the end of April, surfs up? Sunshine? Anyone???? METO or MurcieBoy or RJS or GFS or....... Toss a coin...... What needs to be remembered is when the forecast was made.........

The trouble is, if everyone just kept quiet and waited to see, there wouldn't be anything in this thread, would there? What exactly would you like people to have discussed here for the last two to three months? Surely kicking the ball about - challenging, disagreeing, supporting, hoping - seeking to find how and why it might be right or wrong, how it might or might not fit in with what we currently understand, is the whole point? What a dull place it would be if all that stopped. Sometimes people go a little far, but only a little, and not often - and if MB seeks (and sets himself up publicly) to overturn so profoundly everything that everyone thinks we know (or at least everything they think we don't know) about weather forecasting and indeed much of science, then this process is surely to be expected, and entirely healthy? I would also hazard a guess that MB would far prefer to be challenged and argued with than not noticed or ignored...

I have to say also that if you think Roger was being patronising and narrow-minded, then I fear you may not have really understood what he wrote in his post. And I, in turn, am shocked by your suggestion that he has ironically "joined the gang" of the (allegedly) narrow-minded stiflers of radical, new thought. To my mind he has been consistently respectful to MB - not least by taking a lot of time and trouble to compose and write substantial, well-reasoned and interesting posts. How on earth is talking in detail about the best way of objectively assessing the accuracy of MB's forecast "denigrating" it? I'm utterly perplexed, sorry.

[Pie Man]

Lorenzo, You've hit the nail on the head. Science is about understanding mechanisms and being able to reproduce the results. It is not sufficient just to say 'lets see how it turns out'.

It is like me saying to everyone that next time I roll a dice it will turn up '6' (my forecast).

• If I do roll a '6' then I take the glory and give you all a load of tosh on 'my method' and 'how I did it'. I can say anything I like 'because it worked'.
• If I don't roll a '6' (this bit deleted by OON).......unless I was to roll a '1' which means I have a correlation coefficient of -1 (i.e. the dice is upside down).

Pieman

My queries are and remain -

3 Unwillingness to discuss method and give ethereal responses to why method should or shouldnt be discussed when there are 12k users fascinated by weather who could contribute, yet the rebuttal is you looked at wheat prices for trading and this gave birth to a passion spawning a wild forecast that took 15 mins in the brain and more time on paper.

Edited January 27, 2011 by Osbourne One-Nil

[30gm2m]

Osmposm, you're absolutely right, I had been at Auntie's sherry last night and the Bristol Cream always brings out the worst in me. RJS's input is always scientific and well reasoned, I think I was having a moment due to some of the mocking and lets face it, insulting (quackery comes to mind) contributions from some posters. Apologies to Roger for my drunken misunderstanding, I think it was the right ammunition but most certainly the wrong target.

BTW, you should have seen that post before OON got hold of it, something about my good woman and a telephone box! Kids, don't do sherry!!!

[mesocyclone]

Afternoon all,

Still looking forward to the outcome of your forecast M.B. I think you have conducted yourself well in this thread having to put up with a lot of ironic hypocrisy.

I find it amusing some of the most offensive posts are guilty of the very thing upsetting them. To claim higher consciousness, 4th dimension and ancient knowledge are all esoteric rubbish whilst giving a very stubborn "psychic" prediction (it won't happen) about a future event yet to happen.??

Has me giggling in disbelief anyway.

OldManMet, i find your post's very refreshing and wise, I'm glad you have become a regular poster.

To open's people's minds a little more to what you can not see i will post the visible light spectrum. Added to this you can think of the audible frequency spectrum running 20hz-20khz. There is many forces and energy's outside of what we can see, touch and feel with our senses. Think of all the information passing through the ether every second in the form of radio waves which you do not see but accept as real and use.

M.B's forecast may well be wrong but some of the posts I've had to read have been extremely closed minded and ignorant. If you don't understand something it doesn't mean its not possible.

Edited January 27, 2011 by mesocyclone

[Osbourne One-Nil]

I think we need to draw a line under the bickering, commenting about the bickering, and any generally over-emotive language, and just discuss the topic like nice people!

Thank you.

[Coast]

OK, so there is complete clarity in what Nick is forecasting and so that no one gets upset at any inference, guessing, misread quotes, wrongly identified charts/data or half seen YouTube video, here is what the lead up to MB's forecast is indicating for tomorrow:

If somebody else hasn't done so after midday, I'll stick up the MetO fax chart for Friday 28th 12z as it is probably the nearest to the forecast time on this particular day. If you can find something closer to the 14.00 hrs or more appropriate, then great.

Please don't get into point scoring (for or against) and try and be constructive in your analysis, not just positive or negative because you you feel like that! With a little bit of thought and courtesy to each other, people can critique this in an adult, meteorological way and assist MB where possible. RJS is doing his more in depth analysis, it will be interesting to see his results when appropriate.

As usual, disrespectful or off topic posts will just be binned, so please save us and yourself the time in doing that.

[MurcieBoy]

Thanks OON + Coast.

Not having a go, but we all know how "fluid" the models are more than a few days out. The deep lows close to the UK appearing on the models have been getting closer to the target day of 3 Feb 2011 on each run. I believe this is the closest, just 3.5 days after the "target day".

RJS/BLAST/Anyone - using your energy levels knoweldge/experience, any comments as whether this can happen earlier; or where the energy has come from for it to happen on 7 Feb (if the models are to be believed)? OldMetMan - you have consistently posted there was a possibility - any thoughts?

Edited January 27, 2011 by MurcieBoy