has the Met office lost the plot?
 

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

"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


Yes, indeed. It's food for many moths and crickets, among other things. A
recent thread explored the loss of once-common chirruping crickets and their
like. Those who claimed to still see them were the people who grew grass or
lived close to grassland. I'll stick with my grass and its treasured
inhabitants - they are worthwhile to me. There are areas aplenty in my
garden where grass has vanished in the interest of 'better' plants, but I
must also have native and natural things around me.

Spider

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

The message
from "Spider" contains these words:

Yes, indeed. It's food for many moths and crickets, among other things. A
recent thread explored the loss of once-common chirruping crickets and
their
like. Those who claimed to still see them were the people who grew
grass or
lived close to grassland. I'll stick with my grass and its treasured
inhabitants - they are worthwhile to me. There are areas aplenty in my
garden where grass has vanished in the interest of 'better' plants, but I
must also have native and natural things around me.

My garden was full of tiny crickets this spring, but the bloody spiders
ate most of them...

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

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

On 1/9/08 09:55, in article ,
"Mary Fisher" wrote:


"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


I doubt earthworms would agree!

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

On 31 Aug, 20:01, (Nick Maclaren) wrote:
In article ,C harlie 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.

Between 1968 and 1971 I made 4-hourly reports of sea temperature,
atmospheric pressure, wind direction and strength, precipitation and
cloud cover by telegram to the Met office from merchant ships. These
were voluntary observations. The practice persisted into the 1990s -
I was on a research ship doing it in 1994 - but appears to be
completely dead now. There are, in any case, few British merchant
ships to join in.

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

In article ,
bobharvey writes:
|
| Between 1968 and 1971 I made 4-hourly reports of sea temperature,
| atmospheric pressure, wind direction and strength, precipitation and
| cloud cover by telegram to the Met office from merchant ships. These
| were voluntary observations. The practice persisted into the 1990s -
| I was on a research ship doing it in 1994 - but appears to be
| completely dead now. There are, in any case, few British merchant
| ships to join in.

Yes. The trouble with purely surface observations is that they give
a good idea of how the weather is changing at the time, but very
little information on what it is going to do 24 hours hence. That
information WAS useful - for maritime and aerial safety - but wasn't
enough to make the computer-based forecasts useful.

The satellite data allowed a guess at the water vapour content and
upper air temperatures, plus probably other important figures, which
changed the feasibility of using computers.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

In article ,
Martin writes:
|
| The satellite data allowed a guess at the water vapour content and
| upper air temperatures, plus probably other important figures, which
| changed the feasibility of using computers.
|
| Yesterday was exactly 11 years since the launch of the last Meteosat first
| generation satellite, a satellite cobbled together using flight spares and in
| one case a part rescued from a museum

But the Meteosat series was not the first - see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_satellite

The Nimbus series demonstrated that enough data could be collected,
and it was the successors of that which were used to make the change
from human to computer forecasting.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

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

Yes, indeed. It's food for many moths and crickets, among other things.
A
recent thread explored the loss of once-common chirruping crickets and
their
like. Those who claimed to still see them were the people who grew
grass or
lived close to grassland. I'll stick with my grass and its treasured
inhabitants - they are worthwhile to me. There are areas aplenty in my
garden where grass has vanished in the interest of 'better' plants, but I
must also have native and natural things around me.

My garden was full of tiny crickets this spring, but the bloody spiders
ate most of them...

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


Yup, we do that! Yum yum. :~))

Spider

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

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

My garden was full of tiny crickets this spring, but the bloody spiders
ate most of them...

Yup, we do that! Yum yum. :~))

I say, that's just not cricket, y'know!

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

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

On 2/9/08 21:07, in article ,
"Rusty Hinge 2" wrote:

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

My garden was full of tiny crickets this spring, but the bloody spiders
ate most of them...

Yup, we do that! Yum yum. :~))

I say, that's just not cricket, y'know!

A web of deceit, you think? ;-)
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

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

My garden was full of tiny crickets this spring, but the bloody spiders
ate most of them...

Yup, we do that! Yum yum. :~))

I say, that's just not cricket, y'know!

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


Sad, I know. They didn't even have a good innings, heh heh! I knocked 'em
for six!

Spider

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2/9/08 21:07, in article
,
"Rusty Hinge 2" wrote:

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

My garden was full of tiny crickets this spring, but the bloody spiders
ate most of them...

Yup, we do that! Yum yum. :~))

I say, that's just not cricket, y'know!

A web of deceit, you think? ;-)
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon


Well, they certainly didn't see it coming, or they'd have hopped it! :~)

Spider

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

In article ,
"Spider" writes:
|
| My garden was full of tiny crickets this spring, but the bloody spiders
| ate most of them...
|
| Yup, we do that! Yum yum. :~))
|
| I say, that's just not cricket, y'know!
|
| A web of deceit, you think? ;-)
|
| Well, they certainly didn't see it coming, or they'd have hopped it! :~)

Jiminy! This is getting bad.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

On 3/9/08 12:40, in article , "Spider"
wrote:


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

My garden was full of tiny crickets this spring, but the bloody spiders
ate most of them...

Yup, we do that! Yum yum. :~))

I say, that's just not cricket, y'know!

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


Sad, I know. They didn't even have a good innings, heh heh! I knocked 'em
for six!

Spider



Don't you mean eight? Hadn't got a leg to stand on etc?
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 3/9/08 12:40, in article , "Spider"
wrote:


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

My garden was full of tiny crickets this spring, but the bloody
spiders
ate most of them...

Yup, we do that! Yum yum. :~))

I say, that's just not cricket, y'know!

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


Sad, I know. They didn't even have a good innings, heh heh! I knocked
'em
for six!

Spider



Don't you mean eight? Hadn't got a leg to stand on etc?
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon


Quite so, Sacha, but I'm sure you'll see that leaves me two to stand on
while I munch on them. :~)
Spider

has the Met office lost the plot?
 

Can somebody enlighten me as to

1 - The national BBC weather forecast has no clouds any way near us.
But the local BBC weather shows rain.

2 - Yahoo weather, BBC weather and Met office web sites all show
different weather forecasts for the same place. I just have do an
average of all 3 to get a reasonable forecast.

3 - When I check out the weather on the Met office (typically) website
we are on the very edge of the 'West Midlands' map and right on the
very edge of the 'East Midlands' map. When will I be able to get the
forecast for my town bang in the middle of the screen. My response
from the met office was 'you get what we give you'.