In article ,
Jeff wrote:
On 29/06/2014 18:31, Gary Woods wrote:

One thing I learned is to have several grains of salt handy for any
forecast more than 2 or 3 days ahead. With computer models, localized
forecasts for immediate future are pretty good. The U.S. weather service
has a similar forecast based on zip (postal) code; I just apply a
temperature fudge because I'm about a thousand feet higher than the
pertinent post office...

In the UK, it's worse than that, and often the forecast for 12 hours
ahead is pretty iffy, For the reasons for that, see below.

I agree with Gary about trying to predict our weather more than 2 or 3
days in advance but you could have look here for a 10-day forecast:

http://bit.ly/1iRtf4E

Also, Michael Fish's forecast for the week ahead (Netweather) predicts
"unseasonably" high winds for the UK this coming weekend.

The reason for the problems is the dumbing down of the British public,
not the forecasting.

Partly because of our low altitudes (yes, even in the Highlands),
whether any particular spot gets rain, sun or whatever (and how much)
is a matter of chance. It is possible to predict whether an area
will get rain or sun, but not whether a location will, nor very often
how much.

What is needed is to go back to the older forecast approaches and
update them - i.e. to do it in terms of air masses, their movements
and their interactions, settled and unsettled patterns and so on.
Those are forecastable, and give a good indication of what sorts
of weather are likely. But that would require reeducating the
British public, and neither the media moguls nor the politicians
want THAT!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.