"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

"Spider" wrote in message
...



Well, they've certainly put my gardening nose out of joint. I was going
to mow the lawn and lay some turf today. Big, fat, soggy chance now!!
{:~(

Get rid of the grass and grow something more worthwhile!

Mary


Sacrilege! Wash your mouth out with some of that rainwater. :~)

Spider

"Spider" wrote in message
...

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

"Spider" wrote in message
...



Well, they've certainly put my gardening nose out of joint. I was going
to mow the lawn and lay some turf today. Big, fat, soggy chance now!!
{:~(

Get rid of the grass and grow something more worthwhile!

Mary


Sacrilege! Wash your mouth out with some of that rainwater. :~)

No.

People who grow grass and lovingly water and feed it to make it grow and dal
with 'weeds' in it hen cut it down and don't even eat it are missing
something in the great scheme of things.

Grass is useless except as a food for some animals.

Mary

The message
from Rusty Hinge 2 contains these words:
The message
from Granity contains these words:

Last night I checked today's forecast for my area, it was: Sunny
intervals up until early evening then heavy rain and thunderstorms. I
woke up this morning to thick fog and it's now raining. This means that
last nights forecast was 100% wrong, in fact I can't remember when we
last had a reasonably correct forecast in the last few months but I
suppose there must have been some.
While I appreciate it's a difficult art surely they, with all the super
computers etc they have, they could do better than this.

Forecast was spot-on for here - so far.

Looking forward to the heavy showers this evening...

Sorry to follow-up my own post but...

http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/...--iver_001.jpg

As well as a comment on the accuracy of my forecasting, there is some
progress on the front garden, lilac trimmed to a third of its previous
size; truncating holly tree to about a foot in height; (both actions
letting in light to grape vines, hunza aprocot, cranberries and figs);
hammering-in of posts for supporting cordons/espaliers, etc; Advance Of
The Rhubarb; earthworks, stoneworks, staithe...

....Oh, and just visible over next-door's hedge, half the cheapo tubular
garden-arch, up which has been started some evergreen honeysuckle,
varigated ivy, a dark blue clematis, and when I've rooted it, a
well-known mauve-flowered clematis.

I hope this lot will interweave to produce a tolerably waterproof 'porch'.

I bought two of these archesand a longth of studding, which means I can
extend the arch to twice its intended width, and still have enough
pieces to make a complete hoop.

What to do with it mind, is a moot point.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

In article ,
says...

In article ,
Charlie Pridham writes:
|
| As one of the hundreds of Britsh weather ships in the Atlantic in the
| past I think you underestimate the value of the fact that virtually the
| entire british merchant fleet were kitted out to submit 6 hourly weather
| reports from all over the world, we used to curse it when busy
| (especially the radio officers who had to get up at all sorts of odd
| times as they were done on GMT) but I never recall a missed report. As
| Satilites came in so the fleet shrank so that by now even if the ships
| were submitting reports they would be so far apart as to not be much use

That is true, but you reported only on a limited range of surface
observations, unless I was seriously misled when I worked (physically)
in the Met. Office. The most important data for forecasting beyond the
next 24 hours (and even to a large extent beyond the next 6) is about
the atmosphere higher up - its temperature, humidity and movement.

That is not to deprecate your work, but it helped more with warning
ships to know when to batten down the hatches than to forecast what
would hit the UK.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

This is true the vast majority of the ships did only a range of
observations at the surface and apart from observing cloud type were not
able to tell what was going on above, I believe from talking to some of
the other officers that some of the passenger ships did do balloon work
but I don't know how many
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea

In article ,
Charlie Pridham writes:
|
| This is true the vast majority of the ships did only a range of
| observations at the surface and apart from observing cloud type were not
| able to tell what was going on above, I believe from talking to some of
| the other officers that some of the passenger ships did do balloon work
| but I don't know how many

I am pretty sure that it didn't provide enough coverage to be of much
use for (UK terrestrial) forecasting - certainly, that is what I was
told. Even by the 1960s, passenger ships were dwindling.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

The message
from Alan contains these words:

I find that I can often predict the weather in the next 12 hours myself
by looking at animated satellite images.

When I was a schoolboy in the '50s, I found a sort-of circular
slide-rule which had belonged to my father (d. 1940). It was a 'freebie'
given away with the Daily Telegraph.

You entered (as I remember):

Season (or month?);
Prevailing weather conditions;
Direction of wind;
Temperature;
And probably more...

I never knew it to be wrong: indeed, I earned a small income by
predicting that the weather forecast was wrong, and what the weather
would *REALLY* be.

One coup was betting one of the physics teachers half-a-crown I could
outforecast the official forecast for a week. He paid up.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

That's a few decades ago, actually, as far as the actual patterns go.
The other problem with forecasting is that most people want to know
if THEY will be rained on - and a forecast of patchy rainfall over an
area may be right, but isn't what they regard as right.

Local farmers used to phone RAF Coltishall for a local forecast, and
they were almost always spot-on.

Then some spoilsport told them to stop providing the 'service'.

(And another one closed the airfield.)

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:
"Spider" wrote in message
...

Well, they've certainly put my gardening nose out of joint. I was going
to mow the lawn and lay some turf today. Big, fat, soggy chance now!!
{:~(

Get rid of the grass and grow something more worthwhile!

Watercress...

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

Only two of those were in positions that would be of significant help
in forecasting UK weather, and only one would have been of much use (J).
A and I are too far north to catch most of the movements, and A and C
were too close to America (too much scope for uncertainty later).

Anything close to the USA has infinite scope for uncertainty.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

In article ,
Martin writes:
|
| In the early 1960s civil & military aircraft also supplied weather
| observations in a rather crude form.

I do know a fair amount about such modelling, you know!

The problem about sporadic, crude measurements is that they provide
a VERY bad basis for prediction. Even ignoring the fundamental
inadequacy of such data, writing programs to use it is fiendishly
difficult - MUCH more difficult than writing them to use the data
that comes from a measurement station.

As I said in the first place, up until they got some decent data from
satellites, the primary restriction was the quality of the data.
That lasted until (say) the late 1970s.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
Martin writes:
|
| The problem about sporadic, crude measurements is that they provide
| a VERY bad basis for prediction. Even ignoring the fundamental
| inadequacy of such data, writing programs to use it is fiendishly
| difficult - MUCH more difficult than writing them to use the data
| that comes from a measurement station.
|
| The Ferranti Mercury was a bit limiting too.

I learnt computing by being dropped in at the deep end with wind-flow
modelling on a Mercury Meteor - a 60 microsecond cycle time and 24 KB
of memory :-)

However, during the 1960s, they used systems like CDCs.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:07:16 +0100, Rusty Hinge 2
wrote:

The message
from Alan contains these words:

I find that I can often predict the weather in the next 12 hours myself
by looking at animated satellite images.

When I was a schoolboy in the '50s, I found a sort-of circular
slide-rule which had belonged to my father (d. 1940). It was a 'freebie'
given away with the Daily Telegraph.

You entered (as I remember):

Season (or month?);
Prevailing weather conditions;
Direction of wind;
Temperature;
And probably more...

I never knew it to be wrong: indeed, I earned a small income by
predicting that the weather forecast was wrong, and what the weather
would *REALLY* be.

One coup was betting one of the physics teachers half-a-crown I could
outforecast the official forecast for a week. He paid up.

Not one of these then?
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/obje.../1927-913.aspx

Although this imput info looks right
http://cambonli01.uuhost.uk.uu.net/f...vw/weahome.htm
Northern hemisphere calculations based on Negretti and Zambra weather
slide rule
--
http://www.freedeliveryuk.co.uk
http://www.holidayunder100.co.uk

"Rusty Hinge 2" wrote in message
k...
The message
from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:
"Spider" wrote in message
...

Well, they've certainly put my gardening nose out of joint. I was
going
to mow the lawn and lay some turf today. Big, fat, soggy chance now!!
{:~(

Get rid of the grass and grow something more worthwhile!

Watercress...

Why not? Better than grass.

Mary

In article ,
Martin writes:
|
| However, during the 1960s, they used systems like CDCs.
|
| In 1962 the Met office only had a Ferranti Mercury.

There was no point on wasting money on a CDC for actual prediction
until the collected data was good enough to make it worthwhile.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

The message
from mogga contains these words:

Not one of these then?
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/obje.../1927-913.aspx

Although this imput info looks right
http://cambonli01.uuhost.uk.uu.net/f...vw/weahome.htm
Northern hemisphere calculations based on Negretti and Zambra weather
slide rule

Not got enough bandwith allocation ATM to go looking at websites a lot.

But I do remember it had 'The Daily Telegraph' logo in a prominent position.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig