Forcast was wrong

lucernarian

Deleted User wrote: »

I disagree.
Model guidance was crap in my opinion throughout right up to the event and was evident in the posts in the thread by many of us.
In this instance WC was right to be sceptical as was Su campu and mostly maintained their ground on that scepticism due to irish sea air.

Here is Dm2's prediction at T-24

Heres some key examples of what model "guidance" [if you could call it that...] was making some of us post...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69876101&postcount=105

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69876108&postcount=106

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69885165&postcount=133

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69887722&postcount=139 :o:eek::eek::o:o

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69897925&postcount=188

John Eagleton having it bite him in the ass again...

All these places in this buried in snow prediction got rain..thanks to the irish sea being too warm...

Another example of T-24 or less model guidance reliance where the model guidance turned out to be rubbish

And that's not a fair way to approach my point. All of those links were to posts interpreting the models. Not forecast charts at the time. If you think the models were very out of kilter, surely you'd link to charts showing this?

I think that the models never really showed significant disruptive potential except for the midlands, and only on occasional runs. The 850 hPa thickness charts did a good job of showing what areas would have snow but the precipitation predictions went awry. And by a factor of about 50 km at most. I don't think that's a poor performance for what numerical weather prediction is supposed to do.

We can end up being optimistic or lean on the side of caution for a severe weather event from what the model charts tell us, I didn't mean my earlier post as a criticism of anyone here. I just don't think the models should be blamed either. The GFS ones don't have the resolution for this sort of stuff anyway, charts for t+24 based on it were not the right tool for the job.

Tucking Fypo

illumin wrote: »

I think the above can be the downfall of forcasts in this forum. People that browse it think they are "in the know" and have access to a better forcast than whats given on met.ie. They then tell everyone that extreme weather is on the way and when it doesnt come they want to blame the forcasters here.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: So you have to be a expert forecaster to enjoy and relay the forecast from here?

My response was light-hearted in relation to accepting the apology, so I don't know why you are jumping on the bandwagon. :mad:

To_be_confirmed

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

And that's not a fair way to approach my point. All of those links were to posts interpreting the models. Not forecast charts at the time. If you think the models were very out of kilter, surely you'd link to charts showing this?

I think that the models never really showed significant disruptive potential except for the midlands, and only on occasional runs. The 850 hPa thickness charts did a good job of showing what areas would have snow but the precipitation predictions went awry. And by a factor of about 50 km at most. I don't think that's a poor performance for what numerical weather prediction is supposed to do.

We can end up being optimistic or lean on the side of caution for a severe weather event from what the model charts tell us, I didn't mean my earlier post as a criticism of anyone here. I just don't think the models should be blamed either. The GFS ones don't have the resolution for this sort of stuff anyway, charts for t+24 based on it were not the right tool for the job.

Fact of the matter is,if models are wrong as little as less than 1 day before an event then forecasts based on their "guidance" will be wrong and thats what happened.
The modeling of this event as is often the case was cack.

Rebelbrowser

metrovelvet wrote: »

I remember a many years back in the US when the forecaster underestimated a hurricane and the entire east coast was underprepared and tremendous damage was done.

Since then they overestimate every hurricane or windy rainy day. I remember once they closed school becaucse this BIG HUGE mother ****er of a hurricane was supposed to be coming in and it was no more windy than a windy winter night on the west coast of IReland.

However, it is much better to be overwarned than underwarned imo. So dont sweat it. It's the weather, everyone knows mother nature has her own rules and her own swings and roundabouts.

I have a similar theory about Met Eireann and snow. In Nov 2005 they forecasted snow in Donegal one weekend. Apparently a lot of people cancelled hotel bookings in Donegal because of it. When no snow occured a local hotels federation threatened to sue. It got loads of publicity at the time.

Even though such litigation was boll*x, I think it may have encouraged Met Eireann to be conservative in predicting snow ever since - something that I think lasted until they got burned the other way by failing to fully forecast this winter's early snows (in some people's eyes). I think this most recent omission probably led them to be too eager to call last Friday's event in advance (albeit I'd prefer them to forecast what they see as a risk - even if it doesn't come to pass).

An article on the threatened Donegal litigation is below. A link to a thead here on the issue from 2005 is at http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054856271 .

Irish Independent article on it at the time goes as follows

"A FURIOUS tourism boss has threatened to sue Met Eireann for an inaccurate forecast which he claimed kept hundreds of visitors away from the northwest last weekend.

In what could be the first case of its kind, hotelier and chairman of North West Tourism, Sean McEniff has instructed his lawyers to look into the possibility of taking the national weather forecaster to court for alleged loss of revenue for Co Donegal.

But the Met Office is insisting that the severe weather warning issued last Wednesday was accurate.

Mr McEniff hit out after a fine weekend, where scarcely a single snowflake fell despite predictions of blizzard-like conditions.

He claimed that adverse forecasts had led to cancellation of conferences and room bookings in a number of hotels in Donegal.

"A major conference in Letterkenny was cancelled because of the weather. There was also a conference in Gweedore where a number of main speakers refused to travel because of the weather forecasts," he claimed...
A FURIOUS tourism boss has threatened to sue Met Eireann for an inaccurate forecast which he claimed kept hundreds of visitors away from the northwest last weekend.

In what could be the first case of its kind, hotelier and chairman of North West Tourism, Sean McEniff has instructed his lawyers to look into the possibility of taking the national weather forecaster to court for alleged loss of revenue for Co Donegal.

But the Met Office is insisting that the severe weather warning issued last Wednesday was accurate.

Mr McEniff hit out after a fine weekend, where scarcely a single snowflake fell despite predictions of blizzard-like conditions.

He claimed that adverse forecasts had led to cancellation of conferences and room bookings in a number of hotels in Donegal.

"A major conference in Letterkenny was cancelled because of the weather. There was also a conference in Gweedore where a number of main speakers refused to travel because of the weather forecasts," he claimed.

The hotelier also lost out in his own businesses in Bundoran when less visitors than expected converged for a major musical event.

"There was damn all snow in Donegal. The Met Office has shafted us. It's a different thing when they start to hit us in the pocket," he said. "This carry-on is not on. They have no respect for the north west. We fight hard to get a conference and then you lose it because of wrong information."

Chairman of Donegal County Council, Dessie Larkin claimed the forecast created a perception of Donegal being gripped by a second ice-age.

"I know that forecasts are what the name implies, but surely it would be possible for the Met Office to put out frequent updates if the weather that is being predicted does not materialise," he said.

Criticism

Responding to the criticism, Head of General Forecasting at Met Eireann, Michael Walsh insisted that the severe weather warning had been accurate.

He pointed out that the warning was issued on Wednesday to take effect at 12 midday on Thursday through to Friday and not over the weekend. Winds off the Donegal coast were gusting up to 125km per hour on Friday, he added."

ednwireland

i remeber that very well, the problem was rte were the only people putting a severe weather warning out, no other weather forecast was saying dont travel just there maybe high winds with the possiblity of snow, the conference was cancelled on the back of met advice !

dont think mceniff got anywhere though

met eireann dint have rain radar up here the either (they never showed it on their weather maps) used to watch bbc for theirs

YESROH

DM you got it spot on for my location and I told loads of people and they now think I am an expert.

You are one of the few that I think do know what they are talking about.

Tucking Fypo

YESROH wrote: »

DM you got it spot on for my location and I told loads of people and they now think I am an expert.

You are one of the few that I think do know what they are talking about.

Oh Jesus, don't let illumin hear you say that.

Danno

This event was very similar to March 30th 2010. However in Early January one would expect better snowfall return from such a setup. I think this was the reason for optimism from DM2 and MetE amongst others. Around here the snowline was around 150m to 175m, meaning a 1c to 1.25c marginality. Very very close.

danni2

DM2 I think you got your forecast spot on(for here anyway), baring the rain I had at the start which lasted very shortly I got snow falling nonstop for nearly 5 hours, very heavy for the first 2 hours then very gradually easing up in the last 3 hours, this left me nearly 2 inches of snow on the ground, there's even still bits of snow on the ground in some sheltered areas only melting away now! so nothing wrong with your forecast whatsoever in my opinion:)

Joe Public

Slightly realted:-

I was talking to a roofer last week and asking about when he could do a job and how the weather could hamper him. His answer was "I've been roofing for 25 years and I never check the weather forecast otherwise I'd get nothing done. If I get up in the morning and it's raining then I hold off on a job until it stops. If I'm doing a job and the rain comes down then if necessary I will throw covers over the work until it passes."

The moral of the story - don't believe the forecast until it happens.

BEASTERLY

Joe Public wrote: »

Slightly realted:-

I was talking to a roofer last week and asking about when he could do a job and how the weather could hamper him. His answer was "I've been roofing for 25 years and I never check the weather forecast otherwise I'd get nothing done. If I get up in the morning and it's raining then I hold off on a job until it stops. If I'm doing a job and the rain comes down then if necessary I will throw covers over the work until it passes."

The moral of the story - don't believe the forecast until it happens.

IMHO this is a very dangerous attitude to take. A forecast is and always will be a warning of potential. It is always better to be informed of the threat, ignorance is not always bliss.

For example a trawler goes out to sea because the skipper doesn't watch the forecast because of previous false alarms, now he's in danger of running into storm he's not aware of.

One recent example was a dew weeks back a coast guard rescue chopper was attending an
emergency hit a unforecast snow storm of the cork coast. This almost ended in disaster luckily it didn't. Wouldn't it have been better if they were advised to avoid the area even if there was nothing there rather than taking the chance because the chances were it was
fine?

The morale of the story- It's better to be safe than sorry!

Joe Public

For a roofer it's ok since he can move to safety fairly quickly but for a fisherman at sea or a mountain climber it's a different kettle of fish ok.