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Fuck are all you people googling?
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And more importantly - post the fucking links.
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Jealousy is an ugly emotion⌠
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Casey Jones to re-open at Nuneaton Station.
Literal cattle class.
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That Emmylou Harrisâs older brother was called Rutland (from last nightâs telly).
VB
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Itâs Europe Day!
Lots of Schuman
https://www.robert-schuman.eu/en/special-page-on-may-9
âŚGets everywhere
That weather forecasters canât even manage not to contradict themselves, let alone not to contradict reality. Honestly this is straight from the screen (except for the stuff in red)
Never mind. Theyâll doubtless guess again tomorrow.
VB
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Are the % figures not probabilities? i.e. you may have sparser cloud cover, but that cloud may be more likely to yield rain vs. heavier cloud cover with the potential for heavier rain, but less likelihood of it actually doing so. Not helped by having to use a very limited range of graphic symbols that inexactly convey the message.
Meteorologists have long known that the weather is an example of a chaotic system in action, and that forecasting is part science, (larger) part divination.
Iâve long wondered what the percentages mean. But then I heard someone on the radio explain it recently. Apparently the Met Office computer runs simulations which predict, among other things, precipitation, and he said that for the purposes of the percentage the outcome is treated as binary - either it will rain or it wonât. I guess thereâs a minimum threshold, but apart from that thereâs no consideration of how much rain might fall. The quasi-chaotic nature of the weather means that in some circumstances it can be very sensitive to initial conditions, which arenât perfectly known. So they repeat the simulation many, many times (essentially a Monte-carlo approach) with a reasonable variation of intial conditions. The percentage number which appears with the raindrop symbols is the percentage of those simulations whose outcomes have a tick in the ârainâ box. That should be closely connected to the likelihood of some/any rain.
The symbols at the top are just described by a few words. The one Iâve called Sunny is actually âSunny intervalsâ. You might guess a mix of sun and cloud. But thereâs no mention of rain and I take that to mean Iâm very unlikely to get wet. The one Iâve labelled Rainy is officially âLight rain showersâ. Thatâs pretty clear too. Now there is a risk of getting wet. Maybe not very wet, but if youâre the Flake girl (remember her ?) your watercolour is going to become at least blotchy. Likewise the wet (now in both senses of the word) gloss paint on your gazebo.
TBH most of the time the primary question people want answering is âWill it rain ?â. Everything else is secondary. Everything. If they donât know then they should put up a âFucked if we knowâ symbol. But I guess that repeatedly pointing out how often they canât answer the question would have a corrosive effect on their funding.
VB
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sounds like weather prediction should be chucked into the same âquasi-scienceâ bucket as economics, as in, it pretends to be science but itâs actually just guesswork
(I think Iâm actually more worried that the thing you remember about the Flake adverts is the paintingsâŚ)
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aka Ensemble Forecasting.
I was right there with you, enthralled, and then you Flake-Girled me and Iâm lost in the pink mist now⌠
Well-played, sir, well-playedâŚ
All of science is a work-in-progress split into two divisions by time: we can study events of the past with reasonable felicity (or, indeed, with Reasonable Felicity if weâre fortunate enough to have her assigned to the same project), provided we have plenty of data, and then we can attempt to apply that knowledge to events in the future with varying degrees of accuracy depending on the complexity of the system/s involved.
Weather happens to be wonderfully dynamic, complex and semi-random in nature, AND to be something that most humans generally experience subjectively (e.g. your mild, pleasant day may be my chilly, dreary one - because I am a moany cunt and you are stupid).
Thus, public-facing meteorology truly is the vocation of the masochist, 'cos one is always, ALWAYS RONG in someoneâs eyesâŚ
They probably do but the BBC switched from the Met office a few years ago and ever since then it has been shit.
Iâve been using Dark Skies for a couple of years and even though it has gotten worse it is still monumentally better than the BBC.
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Is it significantly better than Met Office also?
I noticed this too. Still fuming that they removed the Android version although I still use it on iPad and desktop.
(24hr ban for âgottenâ)
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No-one used to say that back in the day.
For short term weather forecasts I havenât seen anything better.
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And Shadow Weather for Android is very good. Uses five different inputs to give you a summary.