UK set for summer of '76 re-run (Met office says nothing!)

mike65

article

Never heard of this lot unless that crowd that suggested the Big Freeze could continue on and off to about er now!

Su Campu

Yep, it's around this time every year we start hearing these outlandish predictions in the Guardian, we heard it the last two years too, that this year WILL be the one, though these commercial forecasters never divulge their methods. Funny that, cos usually they resemble nothing more than a statement of the average summer climate for the British Isles....and the fact that they were way out the last two years is even more reason to be sceptical. I suppose if they keep saying the same thing, and the Guardian gives them free advertising, then by the law of averages, one year they will be right and that's all that will be remembered.

There's one born every minute....:rolleyes:

Danno

Too true Su Campu. Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day!

Joe Public

Even Martin Hansson gets the odd one right.

Deep Easterly

I may be totally wrong in this, but I don't think the summer of 76 was quite as dramatic here in Ireland as it was in the UK. A heatwave in the UK does not necessarily mean that there will be one here.

Deep Easterly

Su Campu wrote: »

There's one born every minute....:rolleyes:

I would go far as to say every second...

pauldry

This Summer will be warmer than now!

Speak Now

I'm forecasting brighter evenings, in fact as early as next week :pac:

force eleven

Yawn....

They wheeled a guy from this crowd last May I think, on Pat Kenny show or one of those programmes and they predicted a long hot summer then with 30c+ temperatures for Ireland.

Its just a publicity gimmick to aid revenue, that's all. Frankly, I'd like to hear the Donegal Postman's opinion before I hear this crowd...

My prediction? Based on the law of averages, we'll see a better summer than last, drier with more settled spells. In other words - a more average type of summer, than the previous 3 washouts...:)

Joe Public

Just for the record 75 & 76 both had July & Aug with average temps higher than 15C

August 76 had an average of 255 hours sunshine which must be a record in itself.

snow ghost

If charlatans are going to pick a field of mis-endeavour then weather forecasting has to be the easiest and potentially most profitable.

The odds are basically 50-50, it's like flipping a coin - it will be a barbecue summer or it wont. Most people would get about as much of an insight into the the coming long term weather by flipping a coin themselves.

Add to those odds the fact that they can say 'possibly' and add the caveat that no weather forecast can be 100% correct; then they will never be wrong.

Then of course there is the media hyperbole as many newspapers like to have orgasms when public funded national weather institutions get it wrong, and rub in it by finding a tenous forecast by an even more tenuous source.

The results are like a mass meterolgical placebo affect as the general public think they remember forecasts that essentially never actually happened and believe that some phoney weather soothsayer has an insight that all the World's scientists and metereologists don't.

snow ghost

force eleven wrote: »

Its just a publicity gimmick to aid revenue, that's all. Frankly, I'd like to hear the Donegal Postman's opinion before I hear this crowd...

I agree, at least there is some merit in the donegal postman looking at how nature is responding to the weather.

Most of the other cranks just say things that will get them free PR, no one is interested when they are wrong.

Next people will be reading cats paws... oh they already do! :eek:

octo

The clue is in the "About Us" section of their website

The long range weather is based on historic seasonal trend statistics, with input from more recent trend activity, plus a wide spectrum of other data variables which go into the formula to produce a forecast.

ie, trying to pick out patterns in the climate record. If it was that easy the met services would have guessed it by now. Isn't there some other "forecaster" who does long-range predictions in a similar way?

Just another internet business selling bull****. I'm surprised at the guardian printing it though, I thought they were a decent paper....

Mr Benevolent

So the Guardian is the equivalent of the Independent. Useful to know.