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Last Nights ? Yesterdays Forecasting Failure


The PIT

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Posted
  • Location: Evesham, Worcs, Albion
  • Location: Evesham, Worcs, Albion

People on here tend too understand warnings and can read I do assure you. Your post is rather insulting to people on these forums to be honest. You may wish to visit the regional threads before the none event and you'll see much discussion about the subject.

On the contrary. My experience both here and on other forums is that most people don't read the warnings or know how to relate them to their localities. I think you'll find the problem was that the MetO had standard generic warnings out which headlined heavy snow - but when you read the details it was clear than in most areas the actual warning was for icy roads and there was no expectation of heavy snow in most of the counties for which the warnings were issued, with more often at best an expectation of hill snow and sleet or rain at lower levels - very much what happened.

I have raised this issue with people I know at the MetO and hope the new system will improve on this admittedly confusing situation we currently have.

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Posted
  • Location: St. Ives Cambs
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and Thunderstorms
  • Location: St. Ives Cambs

Can't speak for other posters but I don't think this is the case in this instance, certainly not from my perspective. Analysis of forecasts is just as important as studying model output and have you seen the big kids drooling over snow in there?

That would be jimbo36 then who thought that there wouldn't be much snow then bumped his own post to show he was right!

On the subject of forecast errors, it will be interesting to see if this evening's snow for the Glasgow area will come off, looks unlikely at the moment. Meto's website is playing it down much more than the warnings on the BBC forecasts.

At the end of the day, we are all weather nuts on here in one form or another. I have been since I was about 8 years old! Some of us read the models, others rely on the established forcasters to make an informed forcast, some even read the sky itself - we all have our different ways of doing things. This thread is about a forcasting faliure for a widespread snow event that was all rain on the day, not about people being childish in their reaction to it.

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Posted
  • Location: Leeds/Bradford border, 185 metres above sea level, around 600 feet
  • Location: Leeds/Bradford border, 185 metres above sea level, around 600 feet

I certainly think that the Met Office relied too much on the NME output, which showed a pretty widespread snow event.

Here, we got sleet due to evaporative cooling, though mostly rain.

It was pretty clear to me by 7pm that it was not going to snow, simply because a look on xcweather showed nowhere in the country below 1C, thus it was a battle from the start and very marginal even here. To quote a poster from London in the regional threads.. "look guys, it aint snowing at 200m outside Birmingham, so it aint going to snow here at all".. Whoever he was, he was spot on.

One of the biggest let downs ever!

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Posted
  • Location: Nottingham
  • Location: Nottingham

Was it really a let down though? If the snow at the end of novemeber had not materialized then that would have been a let down. But this was purely transitional overnight snowfall. And as I said before did the public care one jot; no!!

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Posted
  • Location: Broxbourne, Herts
  • Weather Preferences: Snow snow and snow
  • Location: Broxbourne, Herts

Was it really a let down though? If the snow at the end of novemeber had not materialized then that would have been a let down. But this was purely transitional overnight snowfall. And as I said before did the public care one jot; no!!

To me that's partly the point. Had the BBC forecast rain and snow materialised, then there would have been a public outcry. So i think they went over the top in covering themselves knowing that the outcry doesn't materialise when it happens the other way save for a few of us snow nuts moaning in the wilderness of hyperspace!

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