Met Eireann Forecasts in Retrospect

snow ghost

It may be interesting to see how accuarte Met Eireann's weather forecasts are in retrospect.

Here's their last one last night, judge for yourselves:

"National Forecast


04 January 2010 23:00

Today
Many areas dry at first tonight, however wintry showers across north and west counties will continue to feed southwards across the country before morning. Some accumulations of snow are highly likely, particularly over Ulster and Connacht. Frost and ice a problem too. Cold, with lowest temperatures 0 to minus 5 degrees. Winds will be mainly light westerly, later veering northerly.


Tomorrow

Many areas seeing a good deal of dry and sunny weather tomorrow Tuesday. However there will also be some further wintry showers, mainly affecting Ulster and west Connacht during the morning and afternoon, and then parts of Munster as well as some eastern fringes later in the day. Another bitterly cold day, with frost and ice persisting in places. Highest temperatures 0 to 4 degrees, in a mainly moderate northerly breeze."


One caveat to consider when judging: 'wintry showers' is an all embracing non-specific term which could mean hail, sleet, snow or even freezing rain, etc. Also, showers feeding southwards from North and Western counties essentially means mainly the whole of the country when you consider the geography.

Pangea

Yes they were spot on last night now in fairness , but thats their job!
Lets not make a thread about all the times they get it wrong because Boards.ie will shut down amid all the replys lol

snow ghost

Good to keep them on their toes Pangea!

When you analyse their words, they give very generalised forecasts that cover all bases. e.g.:

Many areas dry at first tonight (good chance that areas will be dry if they are not wet with showers)

however wintry showers across north and west counties will continue to feed southwards across the country (yes it is winter so 'wintry' showers are likely if it isn't dry)

Some accumulations of snow are highly likely, particularly over Ulster and Connacht (No sh*te Sherlock... there are big mountains in both provinces)

Frost and ice a problem too (it gets cold in winter)

Cold (yes it's winter... January - I hardly expect that it's gonna be warm at night)

:cool:

Joe Public

I usually don't complain about Met eireann's forecasts but yesterday's forecast after the 6pm and 9pm RTE news didn't take note of current conditions. It had already been raining at Oak Park, Johnstown Castle, Casement & Dublin Airport since around 5pm but the weather forecaster (GM) said the sleet and snow would spread up the country with no mention of rain even though it was already raining and continued for much of the night at the above stations at least. Did he even look out the window?

Min

Snowed all day yesterday, still snowing now.

Davo D

I'd say a few forecasters in ME will be glad when this winter is over so they can get back to the "sunny spells with a risk of scattered showers, some thundery in places" forecast that they give 90% of the time during spring/summer/autumn.

Deep Easterly

Davo D wrote: »

I'd say a few forecasters in ME will be glad when this winter is over so they can get back to the "sunny spells with a risk of scattered showers, some thundery in places" forecast that they give 90% of the time during spring/summer/autumn.

Of course with the obligatory "with more general rain spreading from the west later tomorrow"

weisses

Deep Easterly wrote: »

Of course with the obligatory "with more general rain spreading from the west later tomorrow"

don't forget the west/southwest gales

MayoForSam

I reckon ME got a bit anxious after last Wednesday's debacle in Dublin (up to then they had been quite reticent in their forecasting), however once they had been trawled over the coals by the government's emergency action committee (should be re-named 'After-the-horse-has-bolted-committee'), they decided to forecast a worst-case scenario for the weekend just gone which never materialised.

I don't envy them their job, that damned Atlantic ocean makes the weather much less predictable compared to continental Europe or the US where when they say it's going to snow, it invariably does. Much more marginal around these parts.

So are they going to turf out all of those electronic voting machines now to make room for all this rock salt that's just been ordered?

In fairness to ME-they're damned if they do and damed if they don't regarding snow forecasts.

Theres no model that can accurately predict how far inland or how high up into the hills a surface layer of moisture will go and thats what the irish sea did to East coast snow,it melted it.

There are only 2 things wrong in my opinion in a scenario where snow is forecast.
one is peoples ability to hear the forecast correctly which is unfixable to be honest.
The other one is ME not using percentage risks more often.

Joe Public

Is ME on a go slow as well? No yesterday's weather for 2nd day in a row. Soon they may be forecasting yesterday's weather

M.T. Cranium

If this high stays around much longer, yesterday's weather and tomorrow's weather will be today's weather.