Why does the government still fund Met Error

Hammered hippie

In a climate where every hospital has to close down or size down, where everything that is a luxury or not realy necessary has to disappear due to cutbacks it is beyond me why a malfunctioning organisation like Met Error is still allowed to experiment with their obviously amateurischly simple weather models.
Met Error would have been obliterated in a commercial market due to a non existing product.
I am not an expert when it comes to statistics or meteorology...but I do know a bit about science. Enough to know that the following is very wrong.
When you look at the prediction for a single day coming up to that day the prediction for a single given day Met Error gives us differs more from day to day coming up to that given day than the weather itself. The variance of the outcome of their prediction is greater that the actual thing they are observing and trying to predict....and that is very bad science.
In normal words one can say that their two day prediction is utter and absolute crap..their one day prediction is usually worthless and even their prediction for the day ahead for most parts of the country is worthless.

Generally I find that one in three/four days is accidentally correctly predicted and the rest usually is fundamentally not what was predicted even the day before. The BBC and Dutch meteorological organisations do a far superior job. Met Error is therefore obsolete and a joke.

Now I don't understand why the government is still pretending to want this sham to continue. Why don't they just give them enough money to do research in some university department and prevent them from telling fairy tales to the public using tax payers money. They should just be realistic about it. There are far superior services out there, even if you look at the weather in Dublin and especially if you look at the weather in the west. Met Error is just too small to compete or be a worthwhile contribution to society. Where most other organisation pull off a near reliable 5 day prediction Met Error is still struggling with their three day fantasy forecast. Met Error uses a potential very promising model but with way too crappy equipment to make this model work...this is a known fact and often used as an excuse.........sorry madam...we could have saved your husband if only we didn't have to operate with shovels but with proper equipment like our neighbours.
If they have to maintain that Met Error has to do some predicting for some obscure 'politician helps friends with easy well paid jobs scheme' then at least give them a small box with a piece of paper that says the following:
Morning => First.....Evening => Later
And...'The big blue thing on the map west of Ireland is actually a water filled body called an ocean...it will affect your prediction'

Sponge Bob

Been asking for a new radar in Dooncarton and a new radar in Mt Gabriel for ( seems like) years...then their forecasts don't matter any more.

Su Campu

Yawn, I think your username says it all. You say you know nothing about meteorology but then claim to know enough about their methods and models to label them useless.

They use the same models the UK, Dutch, German, etc. Met services use. THAT is a fact. Their forecasts are on a par with all those services' too, despite what you think. The only difference is thay have the benefit of real time upstream observations, whereas Met Eireann just have an empty ocean with very few.

I'm inclined to think you're more of a troll looking for a reaction than someone with a genuine opinion. This is obviously another one in the line of ME bashing threads, from someone who really belongs elsewhere. If you have something valid to post then do so, otherwise this thread will go the same way the others have, i.e. Closedville.

bb1234567

I dont think he wrote all that just to be a troll but ye I agree this is such a boring thread ,I stopped reading after like 3 sentences

200motels

I have to totally disagree with this post Met E are doing an excellent job and I for one like there forecasts.

Iancar29

Omg...

HE SHOULD GET A BAN!!!

SERIOUSLY Trolling going on here....

The amount of rubbish coming out of him ... Met EIREANN Are doing what every other meteorology service in the world are doing.. THEIR BEST!

Surely ye there is mistakes at times but they wouldnt be here to this day if they weren't useful! ...

I know stories of how ME saved lives! ....

VITEO FOR THIS THREAD TO BE SWIFTLY CLOSED ...+1

Hammered hippie

Dear Su Campu
Your reference to my user name as 'says it all' is downright discrimination. An apology for such a shortsighted stigmatising response would be apropriate.

If you don't like someones opinion, whether it is sarcastically put like mine or put in another fashion, does not mean you can simply threathen with closing a thread. That would be akin to censorship. Usually one only finds censorship in little dictatorships with people that cannot bear to hear any criticism towards their opinion.
My opinion that Met Error (as I like to call them)...is actually not doing a good job might not be what you want to hear...but it is an opinion.
Another one of my opinions, shared by a lot of people , which sadly was proven by your threath to close this threath , is that Boards has grown so big that they have lost control over the whole thing and every domain within boards is now a small kingdom with some moderators ruling them with an iron fist....and censorship and bans being everyday practice towards those who do not agree with those little bosses.
The advertisment slogan should hence be...Boards.ie..now ye're moderatin'

Now about my thread...yeah it is put in a sarcastic way...but that doesn't mean there is a lot of thruth in it.
I am an end user of Met Error and many other Met services and honestly I don't care that they use the same HIRLAM system as others or that they cannot see into the ocean, which is one of the reasons their 48-24h prediction is not much use for the end user. I am dependent on the weather on a nearly day to day basis and as an end user their forecast division is not much use to me. I assume their forecast division was ment to produce some kind of prediction what the actual weather would be so it could be used by the ordinary man who does not want or need to rub shoulders with the pals at Met Error. As that it is practically useless.
Now I am also user of many other government services that are being cut back. If I have to choose between for example an A&E service or a homebrewn fairy tale about the weather for the coming 48hours , for which there are more competent alternatives widely available..then the choice is easy.
THis was not a troll thread...just me wondering how on earth Met Error still is in the business of predicting the weather as for end users, especially in the west, they are quite useless. Their impopularity with the public in for example Galway can only be topped by the bankers and the politicians. And the fact that only excuses about poor or downright wrong predictions are ever put out by Met Error when Dublin is affected but never for any other part of the country does certainly not help
I understand you all like Met Error and want to be palls with them and feel proud...but honestly...their forecast division does a good bit worse than just having it wrong now and then.
I simply think Ireland is too small to be able to afford a competent Met service...especially as it seems other met services to a far better job having way more insight in what is going on west of us where our weather usually originates.

Iancar29.. witch hunts are soo 2010...

Hammered hippie

Maybe Met Error should be called Met Dub , get only 25% of the money they get now as only 25% of the people live in Dublin,. They seem to do an okay job only for Dublin and only bother about apologising when downright wrong about the Dublin weather.

maquiladora

The Omen 666

Hammered hippie wrote: »

Maybe Met Error should be called Met Dub , get only 25% of the money they get now as only 25% of the people live in Dublin,. They seem to do an okay job only for Dublin and only bother about apologising when downright wrong about the Dublin weather.

hmmmmmmm......

Perhaps if they were better funded things may be better 4 u. If they had a direct line, fiber optic of course, to god they could ask himvhis plans for the coming days...

Would that help?

There are larger fish to fry in this fair isle than worrying about the small amount of funding met error,as u put it, get...

redsteveireland

Whoa you have alot of time on your hands.
In fairness you are trying to make one or two points but when your post is so long the point gets lost and people get bored.
The way I see it they are under funded, the buoys are not all working and also some of the weather stations provide no data.
I live in the west and I only use them for the radar which is good enough.

As someone mentioned before in a previous thread they mainly provide data to the aviation authority and the weather forecast that we get is only a token gesture.

BEASTERLY

Hammered hippie wrote: »

I am dependent on the weather on a nearly day to day basis and as an end user their forecast division is not much use to me.

LOL, I'm sure you are very dependent on the weather. I mean if it starts to rain unexpectedly while sitting at home all day doing nothing but stirring up shít with bullshít on the internet.... well that would be just..... disastrous.


BTW, do you have an example of when Met Eireann failed you? Also you say you don't care if they use the HIRLAM model yet you use as it as the subject of your first(shíte) point in your opening post.

eskimocat

Threads like this often bring to mind something I read or heard once about what it is like trying to forecast weather.

It went along the lines of : compare water surface to the land mass of the earth and then consider the influence of sun and moon, throw in the earths spin, jet streams, el nino, el nano, a few earthquakes and volcanos etc.

Then you then have to predict what influences all these might have on the weather over the tiny landmass that is Ireland!


I can't remember it properly and if anyone can help me with it please post it. It's been wreaking my head for ages

stevenmu

redsteveireland wrote: »

As someone mentioned before in a previous thread they mainly provide data to the aviation authority and the weather forecast that we get is only a token gesture.

They also provide a vital service to shipping, and to some extent agriculture.

Hammered hippie

Well..it's raining today...soo...yeah..loads of time on my hands.
If it is so hard to predict the weather for those guys at Met Error..and there are so many excuses why it often goes wrong....why do they bother then.
I don't know much more than the rain radar tells me....and I don't go about telling people I know what the weather will be two days ahead..
Basically what most are saying...yeah man...it's the weather..its unpredictable ...get over it. Now it happens this has been common knowledge since the dawn of mankind...weather---> difficult to say anything about.
And that is why we pay money to the guys at Met Error....to make a bit of sense out of it and perhaps predict. If they then come back at us with the same old message...weather--->difficult to say anything about....why do we pay them money then?

Hammered hippie

Many of the people that credit Met Error with a good performance come from the east and Dublin. Met Error focusses on Dublin, for obvious reasons.
No harm in that. More important...the weather that arrives in Dublin usually comes from the west or southwest. That means that Met Error has a half a day heads up by just checking what goes on in the west and then just copy paste for the 6-12+ hour prediction. It keeps the people in Dublin happy and makes Met Error look somewhat competent.
When one is from the west the story is different...no warnings ahead for Met Error and very often not even a correct representation or prediction for the same day.
Now I ask you..if it is grey, overcast and pissing rain one can still find a nice sunny day prediction at Met Error. That is just plain wrong and showing such desinterest for whatever they tell the public... It is that that makes me convinced they would be better of not predicting the weather...or just stick to Dublin.

Hammered hippie

@Stevenmu

Plenty of examples where shipping wasn't too happy with a met error prediction..or the lack thereof. Farmers seem to be also kind of very reluctant when it comes to their predictions.
Lets see...of all three times they predicted a spell of decent weather this year so farmers could do some grass mowing.....ehm..none actually happened.

Discodog

I am very dependant on accurate hour by hour forecasts & apart from the radar I never refer to ME. I have been told, but I can't tell you as I have been warned not to, that it is a matter of resources.

IMO ME should concentrate it's resources on forecasting & use an RTE weather girl for presenting . I am certain that ME could operate more efficiently - I have never seen a government body that doesn't waste money.

The service should be open to private competition & should be tendered for say every 5 years.

Just a thought but this costs a fortune - from the ME website:

"The rain and drizzle will ease off on Thursday morning to give a mix of scattered showers and brighter spells. A mild, warm day with highest temperatures of 17 to 21 degrees in moderate west to southwest breezes."

And this is free:

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Wednesday, 10 August, 2011
____________________________________
THURSDAY ... Showers ending, variable cloudiness, more isolated showers redeveloping later. Some sunny intervals especially south. Warm, lows near 13 C and highs near 20 C.

thetonynator

eskimocat wrote: »

Threads like this often bring to mind something I read or heard once about what it is like trying to forecast weather.

It went along the lines of : compare water surface to the land mass of the earth and then consider the influence of sun and moon, throw in the earths spin, jet streams, el nino, el nano, a few earthquakes and volcanos etc.

Then you then have to predict what influences all these might have on the weather over the tiny landmass that is Ireland!


I can't remember it properly and if anyone can help me with it please post it. It's been wreaking my head for ages

Someone round here had it as a sig for ages. can't remember who though.

Su Campu

Dear hammered hippie

Firstly, and I think I speak for everyone on here, your use of the term Met Error, while maybe mildly amusing first off, is now becoming quite irritating and childish.

Secondly, and more to the point, your whole argument about the alleged total failure of their forecasts is just plain wrong, and seems to be based on a hatred of government bodies in general. It seems you have the age old East vs Wesht social stigma, where in some way, the West is forgotten by the East. Whatever your problem, this is not a place to take it up. Your ME argument has no basis, and any statistical analysis will prove you wrong.

Thirdly, I don't like your tone. It is disrespectful to all myself, all other boardsies, and the boards.ie community in general. I am not going to allow your rants to continue on this forum for which I have a shared responsibility to moderate.

For this reason, I am closing this thread. I suggest you take up your socio-economic worries in another more suitable forum.