Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all! We have been experiencing an issue on site where threads have been missing the latest postings. The platform host Vanilla are working on this issue. A workaround that has been used by some is to navigate back from 1 to 10+ pages to re-sync the thread and this will then show the latest posts. Thanks, Mike.
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Forcast was wrong

2»

Comments

  • #52
    darkman2
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 8,632 ✭✭✭darkman2


    Thanks for all your replys. I have read each and every one. I appreciate the support but I did not intend this to be a symphaty exercise. I am not so deluded as to think the media don't watch these threads either and that led to the hysteria somewhat (crazy stuff that was not even forcast!). I think it is important to say we are wrong when we are wrong. I don't think there is enough of calling it like it is amongst forcasters. They (inc myself) would like to think we are in a bubble and beyond criticism hiding behind models so sophisticated the human hand is almost out of date just to access them. We are not. I really appreciate MT's post. There is no sense in us carrying on like nothing happened because naturally people will say "that clown got it wrong"....!"why would I believe it now?" I know some of you say this thread was not needed. Maybe not but I think it is important to admit if we got something wrong. We did on this occasion for the most part. I know alot of areas got snow and some "significant" amounts particularly higher ground.

    Criticism is healthy and I welcome it because we can adjust quickly. And criticism is deserved in this case.

    I really appreciate the support, thanks very much. I am embarrased by it really. Forcasts for marginal snow events on boards will be better as a result of this because ultimately we all have to learn. And we are learning all the time. That's the positive.


  • #53
    Tucking Fypo
    Registered Users Posts: 177 ✭✭Tucking Fypo


    I accept your apology.... :p

    I've been scouring this section since the big wind/rain episode we had a few months back. I would relay the forecasts from here to all and sundry. I was telling everyone about this second bout of ''significant snow'' and all we got was a drizzle.:pac:


  • #54
    illumin
    Registered Users Posts: 427 ✭✭illumin


    Tucking Fypo wrote: »
    I accept your apology.... :p

    I've been scouring this section since the big wind/rain episode we had a few months back. I would relay the forecasts from here to all and sundry. I was telling everyone about this second bout of ''significant snow'' and all we got was a drizzle.:pac:


    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.


  • #55
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,235 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    I still don't think that Darkman predicted anything too out of the ordinary. It just so happened that the likes of Meath, Kildare, Carlow, Laois and Kilkenny didn't get the snow forecast here. But the models didn't really suggest it either. I think the models did an excellent job and better than the last time a mid-atlantic yclonic system hit polar air over this country. It was never likely that Dublin or much of Leinster would see snow and the model guidance never really suggested otherwise. Now if Darkman2 did forcast a few inches in the Pale (higher ground in Louth excepted) then he did get it wrong but I don't remember him saying that.


  • #56
    Su Campu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,279 ✭✭✭Su Campu


    It was never going to be a widespread snow event, and my initial thoughts on seeing the title were that it was a little over the top. There was just about enough cold there for front and back edge snow, but this was also where the lightest precipitation was going to be - Friday morning being a case in point. When the bulk of the precipitation arrived, uppers were way too warm for low level snow, except for back edge as it retreated back eastwards Friday evening. This was evident even in the forecast sounding I posted on Wednesday, which showed things getting the wrong side of marginal pretty quickly.


    anim_209111af-c4df-2ec4-59c9-f943d49fa3c4.gif


    Nobody needs to apologise to anybody here. It is only when things go wrong that you learn for the next time. We learn nothing by being right. If it had been two weeks ago we would have had deeper cold already in place and it would have turned out with more snow, but we can't really expect anything other than rain with -2°C uppers.


  • #57
    Pangea
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,565 ✭✭✭Pangea


    Where are the Forecast was right threads?
    There would be a lot of them from the last three freezes :pac:


  • #58
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    To_be_confirmed wrote: »
    I still don't think that Darkman predicted anything too out of the ordinary. It just so happened that the likes of Meath, Kildare, Carlow, Laois and Kilkenny didn't get the snow forecast here. But the models didn't really suggest it either. I think the models did an excellent job and better than the last time a mid-atlantic yclonic system hit polar air over this country. It was never likely that Dublin or much of Leinster would see snow and the model guidance never really suggested otherwise. Now if Darkman2 did forcast a few inches in the Pale (higher ground in Louth excepted) then he did get it wrong but I don't remember him saying that.
    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: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


  • #59
    Joe Public
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,783 ✭✭✭Joe Public


    darkman2 wrote: »
    I must appoligise to you all. My forcast for significant snow was wrong. I won't make excuses, it was simply wrong and im sorry if you prepared or were disappointed. It is my fault. I will adjust things to ensure a screw up like this is less likely in the future by myself. Sorry.

    I don't think anyone always expects the favourite to win in a race and the same goes for weather forecasting. If anyone 100% believed you then it is their fault not yours so keep on forecasting.


  • #60
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    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.


  • Advertisement
  • #61
    BEASTERLY
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,789 ✭✭✭BEASTERLY


    Dont worry about it DM2, everybody gets it wrong some times, even M.T gets it wrong the odd time. It is impossible to get it right 100% of the time and it would be totally unreasonable to ask somebody to achieve that. Plus in my opinion your forecast was pretty accurate for much of the country

    Most of the people who regularly read this forum are avid weather watchers and understand how difficult forecasting is, never mind forecast such a complex event as Friday. So none of us would criticize anybody for getting a forecast wrong.

    I havent seen any posts criticizing you, and if anybody did its because they have no knowledge of the subject at hand. No point worrying about ignorant fools;)

    I still think your a great asset to the forum and will trust your opinions as most of the time you are on the money. Keep on making forecasts and contributing to the forum,

    Beast


  • #62
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,235 ✭✭✭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: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.


  • #63
    Tucking Fypo
    Registered Users Posts: 177 ✭✭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:


  • #64
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    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.


  • #65
    Rebelbrowser
    Registered Users Posts: 3,167 ✭✭✭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."


  • #66
    ednwireland
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,452 ✭✭✭✭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

    My weather

    https://www.ecowitt.net/home/share?authorize=96CT1F



  • Advertisement
  • #67
    YESROH
    Registered Users Posts: 61 ✭✭YESROH


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

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


  • #68
    Tucking Fypo
    Registered Users Posts: 177 ✭✭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. :D

    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.


  • #69
    Danno
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭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.


  • #70
    danni2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 252 ✭✭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:)


  • #71
    Joe Public
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,783 ✭✭✭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.


  • Advertisement
  • #72
    BEASTERLY
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,789 ✭✭✭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!


  • #73
    Joe Public
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,783 ✭✭✭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.


Advertisement