Discussion on Winter LRFs (9/10/2006)

Snowbie

sunset wrote:

Cheer up Snowbie. Perhaps this discussion could turn to forecasting the next forecast!! It has been an interesting discussion so far.

LRFs always make for good reading,in fact Winter is probably the most issued LRF for any season by Professional inexperienced/amateur person with an interest.This is why you have every MET organisation in our part of the world posting several LRFs throughout the Autumn and during the winter months on the winter season.
Winter weather is just too fickle,its hard to tell one week from the next let alone one month from the next,tis why you have these conflicting sometimes contradicting LRFs from one met org to the next.

But they do offer good reading and explanations but when a professional MET forecasters start contradicting/changing there own forecasts in a short space of time they start to bore me imho.They have to do it cautiously because they have to LRF or guess.The winter months in Ireland and UK in any year are Mild,Dry,Windy,Cold snaps/more wind/wet and mild again these days.Now LRF that into stages in winter.Cant be done.Then put the NAO,PO and ElNino,SSTs,GW or AGW into the equation and what do you get,total computer confusion and one wicked guesstimate.It simply just cant be done and is changed so often during winter.Now i have been looking at this for years and there is only one trend emerging since 2000 and that is our winter months are delayed and shortened.January tends to be drier and March seems to be colder.Very opposite during the 80s.January was colder and wetter(snow or Rain) and March was much milder and hearld the start of spring.

So the 90s were the transitioning years between the todays decade and the 80s? Is GW having an impact,maybe.Is La Nino and Elnino really having a devastating effect on our winters so much so that it aint cold anymore,maybe.But one thing is for sure an LRF 20 odd years ago was much more accurate than todays.

So Sunset its not that i need to cheer up,its yourself that needs to make your mind up on the topic,i have.Just read them all(LRF) and decipher the code.Best of luck.;)

/me runs at great speed away from pc.

Snowbie

This just proves my case on LRForecasting when pro`s change their views.He is a bloke who knows his stuff but it simply cant be done by anyone for winter.

Ian Brown from Net weather wrote:

Ian Brown
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Cumulonimbus


Group: Long range forecast team
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One of the problems we have is that cold air that we can tap into is so far away from our shores at the moment.

The main reason I have called my winter forecast as busted is that I have got the whole hemispheric pressure pattern wrong rather than just conditions over the UK on a local level. Last winter we had a PV over Greenland for much of the first half of the winter but Low pressure systems never really made it past the Meridian and the cold air was building over Eastern Europe. I expected a similar build up of cold by now even if we were on the wrong side of it.

Of course it is not too late for such a scenario to develop but given that if we were to get that far, we seem to need luck, timing and several near misses for the continental air to get this far West in the modern era.

So we let mother nature take centre stage or do we look at trends/sunspot minimun to get a glimmer of hope on cold weather for the cold lovers or is it technology cant keep up to date with weather patterns defying the odds all the time even by todays standards??

ch750536

Bizarrely I went to school with Ian Brown, that actual one too, not some other Ian Brown.

Maybe not bizarre, certainly odd(ish).

Snowbie

Yet another LRF for winter.:rolleyes:

Net weather have released an updated LFR for the winter remain.

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=forecast;type=seasonal;sess=

Gonzo

after reading the above and seeing all the trends etc on other websites I think this winter sounds like as if its gonna remain doomed for cold/snow lovers:(