All Things Met Eireann Related Go in Here (MOD NOTE #1)

snubbleste

Welsh dragon spits fire

octo

tphase wrote: »

Thanks Lumi, I have access to data. I'm just wondering why they would put time limit on how far back you can go. Possibly this is just the first step in the process and eventually all historical data will become freely available

I think you're right. In the mean time, you can ask for what you want:
http://www.met.ie/climate/climate-data-information.asp

All climate data recorded at our stations are supplied free of charge if requested under the Access to Information on the Environment Regulations (AIE).

You are required to:

Submit an application to our AIE Officer, by email to aie@met.ie or in writing to AIE Officer, Met Éireann, Glasnevin Hill, Dublin 9
Provide your contact details,
State, in terms that are as specific as possible, the climate data required e.g. station(s)/time periods/ elements.

Schadenfreudia

Well, I guess this isn't strictly (or even slightly) Met Eireann related

(But can't find a more appropriate thread)

Does anyone notice that the otherwise good current weather situation map on

http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/

Seems to have a permanent heavy shower located over Dublin City centre.

Why??

tphase

Website bug.:cool:
The time shown on the short range forecast plot is out of sync with the time shown underneath the plot - one is UTC, one BST. Wish they'd stick with UTC all year round

Discodog

Shannon radar down again.

tphase

no daily data since the 25th for many stations, not much on 'yesterday's weather' page either.

Oneiric 3

tphase wrote: »

no daily data since the 25th for many stations, not much on 'yesterday's weather' page either.

Would say there is some issue with the data entry code on the page or something. It looks like the data is trying to get in, but it is coming out all muddled.

Oneiric 3

Something I have noticed over the last couple of years is this strange anomaly on the rain radar. where you see sudden radar return moving rapidly from south to north ahead of the main band of rain. Always seems to happen when a band of rain is moving in from the west over Ireland, and always seems to occur in the same region. I am thinking aliens or something, but does any one have a better theory?




Image from met.ie

FWVT

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Something I have noticed over the last couple of years is this strange anomaly on the rain radar. where you see sudden radar return moving rapidly from south to north ahead of the main band of rain. Always seems to happen when a band of rain is moving in from the west over Ireland, and always seems to occur in the same region. I am thinking aliens or something, but does any one have a better theory?




Image from met.ie

It's to do with blockage of the radar by nearby rain at DUB. If you look at the 1st and 2nd frames you will see that there is precip in the vicinity of the Dublin radar, but from the 3rd frame on it has moved away and has cleared the way for the beam to pick up the precip that you refer to. If that precip is moving in a more northerly direction it could be at a higher altitude, therefore in flow less affected by the Coriolis force.

Oneiric 3

FWVT wrote: »

It's to do with blockage of the radar by nearby rain at DUB. If you look at the 1st and 2nd frames you will see that there is precip in the vicinity of the Dublin radar, but from the 3rd frame on it has moved away and has cleared the way for the beam to pick up the precip that you refer to. If that precip is moving in a more northerly direction it could be at a higher altitude, therefore in flow less affected by the Coriolis force.

Defo something to do with Dub radar blockage alright but I have seen this happen - in the very same area - numerous times, under what seem to be very specific circumstances. The above example is really only a small scale version to what I have seen happening before on a number of occasions - even when there is no prep off the Wexford/Wicklow coast.

In fact, if you look at the latest radar sequence, you'll see that this rogue radar return has virtually stalled.

Rougies

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Defo something to do with Dub radar blockage alright but I have seen this happen - in the very same area - numerous times, under what seem to be very specific circumstances. The above example is really only a small scale version to what I have seen happening before on a number of occasions - even when there is no prep off the Wexford/Wicklow coast.

In fact, if you look at the latest radar sequence, you'll see that this rogue radar return has virtually stalled.

My best guess would be wave interference between Shannon and Dublin radars under these (fairly regular) conditions causing constructive nodes to appear on radar returns. Probably not a pronounced real world (electromagetic) effect, but the software used to triangulate, interpolate and then visualise the data probably has a hard time dealing with stuff like this. It would take programming in exceptions to the algorithm to alleviate "special circumstances anaprops" which isn't really a good thing to do since it would be like using duct tape on a leaky pipe.

EDIT: I did an overlay http://i.imgur.com/kSTJX0H.jpg on your image to see where wave interference may occur, and it maybe the case. Actually your circle is almost perfectly intersecting where the inner 3 radar circles meet, which is interesting (but not really relevant). There's loads of variables though such as the wavelength of both radars and all sorts of other jiggery pokery but the general area you circled is pretty close to an area of possible high interference causing the strange anomalies. It's another theory at least!

Most likely explanation: http://i.imgur.com/XMKTM9z.jpg

Oneiric 3

Rougies wrote: »

My best guess would be wave interference between Shannon and Dublin radars under these (fairly regular) conditions causing constructive nodes to appear on radar returns. Probably not a pronounced real world (electromagetic) effect, but the software used to triangulate, interpolate and then visualise the data probably has a hard time dealing with stuff like this. It would take programming in exceptions to the algorithm to alleviate "special circumstances anaprops" which isn't really a good thing to do since it would be like using duct tape on a leaky pipe.

EDIT: I did an overlay http://i.imgur.com/kSTJX0H.jpg on your image to see where wave interference may occur, and it maybe the case. Actually your circle is almost perfectly intersecting where the inner 3 radar circles meet, which is interesting (but not really relevant). There's loads of variables though such as the wavelength of both radars and all sorts of other jiggery pokery but the general area you circled is pretty close to an area of possible high interference causing the strange anomalies. It's another theory at least!

Most likely explanation: http://i.imgur.com/XMKTM9z.jpg

Weirdly enough, I noticed that this anomaly showed only on the met radar, rather than say netweather or weatheronline etc, both which seem to use higher resolutions than the met radar which perhaps applies a lower res to help smooth out those huge interferences and gaps that show up on other radar sites. But whatever this has to do with anything I don't know, but most likely to do with a combination of what yourself and FVWT have put forward. Although I don't think we can still can't rule out the possibility of

FWVT

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Weirdly enough, I noticed that this anomaly showed only on the met radar, rather than say netweather or weatheronline etc, both which seem to use higher resolutions than the met radar which perhaps applies a lower res to help smooth out those huge interferences and gaps that show up on other radar sites. But whatever this has to do with anything I don't know, but most likely to do with a combination of what yourself and FVWT have put forward. Although I don't think we can still can't rule out the possibility of

Don't forget, though, that Netweather, etc. use the UK radar sites too, so were not talkingnjust interference between Dub and Shannon radars in this case.

Rougies

FWVT wrote: »

Don't forget, though, that Netweather, etc. use the UK radar sites too, so were not talkingnjust interference between Dub and Shannon radars in this case.

That's exactly the point Oneric3 was making. Netweather, Raintoday, UK met etc. use data from the UK radars AND Dublin and Shannon so they've got much more accurate data to work with than the Irish met.ie radar image that uses only two. With only two radars to triangulate from you're going to get a lot more errors than with the (at least) 4 or 5 that are in range of the south Irish Sea on UK sites.

highdef

Poor Evelyn got into a bit of coughing fit on a recent broadcast - nothing worse when that happens as there really is nothing you can do but let it all out. There really is no comeback when it happens and it does happen to the best of us!!!

Harry Palmr

Well, Met Error tries Al-fresco weather. That went well! :pac:

NufcNavan

Denis O'Brien gagged RTE Weather too it seems.

snubbleste

In an online rant, Evelyn Cusack said: “Please stop … trying to sell this rubbish to the gullible Irish citizen.” http://www.thestar.ie/star/evelyn-cusack-slams-rubbish-forecasts-63174/

Where's the online rant?

Discodog

Dublin radar down for a change.

Discodog

Now at 11.15am the radar is stuck at 10am.

piuswal

Not anymore

Munstermac

Even allowing for the fact that Met Eireann operate in a difficult part of the world when it come to weather prediction their performance this week in relation to next weekends weather really takes the biscuit!!

I have a lot of weather depend work to get through this weekend (I'm in Clare) and consequently I've been monitoring the weather closely to plan my time.

On Wednesday's 9 news we were basically going to get a good day on Saturday with a few showers in the north with Sunday being a near total write off.

Last night Saturday changed to rain in the south (below Clare) with showers elsewhere with Sunday still a write off.

And on this mornings 7:50AM radio forecast (less than 11 hours later!!) this had changed to clear in the south and north with rain spreading west across the rest of the country with the rain clearing overnight to leave a mainly dry and bright day on Sunday!!!

Consequently my whole weekend is screwed up now as I had planned and arranged to do all my work on Saturday and forget about Sunday!!!

And what really gets my goat is the lack of accountability or apology. The foreign sounding gentleman on this morning's forecast just rattled it off with no reference that it was at complete variance with the previous night's forecast.

I am well aware that forecasters constantly tell us that they are hard pushed to forcast beyond 5 days but 1 or 2 days!! What's the point??

Grrrrrrrr.

Eugene Norman

Munstermac wrote: »

Even allowing for the fact that Met Eireann operate in a difficult part of the world when it come to weather prediction their performance this week in relation to next weekends weather really takes the biscuit!!

I have a lot of weather depend work to get through this weekend (I'm in Clare) and consequently I've been monitoring the weather closely to plan my time.

On Wednesday's 9 news we were basically going to get a good day on Saturday with a few showers in the north with Sunday being a near total write off.

Last night Saturday changed to rain in the south (below Clare) with showers elsewhere with Sunday still a write off.

And on this mornings 7:50AM radio forecast (less than 11 hours later!!) this had changed to clear in the south and north with rain spreading west across the rest of the country with the rain clearing overnight to leave a mainly dry and bright day on Sunday!!!

Consequently my whole weekend is screwed up now as I had planned and arranged to do all my work on Saturday and forget about Sunday!!!

And what really gets my goat is the lack of accountability or apology. The foreign sounding gentleman on this morning's forecast just rattled it off with no reference that it was at complete variance with the previous night's forecast.

I am well aware that forecasters constantly tell us that they are hard pushed to forcast beyond 5 days but 1 or 2 days!! What's the point??

Grrrrrrrr.

I suppose the models changed.

fits

A lot of it isvery marginal at the moment. I was watching last week for west of ireland. For five days in a row the models were predicting warm weather with a low pewssure system to the north west. The low pressure won out though and we had constant rain in the weekend in question in the end. Thats just how it goes sometimes.

Storm 10

I could not believe that forecast this morning either, on the weather after the 9pm news last night she said Saturday would be the best day and Sunday more or less a washout, then this morning a complete reversal, I actually thought they had the forecast the wrong way round today, perhaps they had only time will tell.

mirrorwall14

Unfortunately it's the nature of our unique position on the outskirts of Europe with the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream to the west, cold to the north and mixed weather from the continent. Big fat melting pot of weather

Munstermac

"Unfortunately it's the nature of our unique position on the outskirts of Europe with the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream to the west, cold to the north and mixed weather from the continent. Big fat melting pot of weather"

Yes I understand all that but we're talking about highly educated professionals here who managed to get the forecast 100% wrong from only 36 hours out and at the least unpredictable time of year.

To be honest they may as well just give us civilians the model data and we can work it out for ourselves.

Maybe its time that ME start issuing confidence ratings with their forecasts like they do in other countries.

1 to 5 with 1 being no confidence and 5 being totally confident.

At least then us ordinary punters will be forewarned.

ninebeanrows

It must be admitted that the models have flipped on Saturday/Sunday's weather evolution in the last 36 hours, at quite short notice.

All to do with the development of a shortwave to the west of Ireland... models often underplay these and the consequence can be a sudden increase predicted precipitation.

They did pretty bad on this though in fairness, but nothing Met E can do about it.

Calibos

I totally understand MunsterMacs frustration having planned his work schedule around the earlier forecast but I have to admit that when I read his post I punched the air with Joy Bray AirShow is on Sunday and its gone from looking like a Dull, low cloud, Windy, Cool washout to a fabulous reasonably Sunny, warm dry calm day. Just finished watching the fantastic practice session of the Patrouille de Suisse Jet Display Team down on the Seafront. A few thousand down there for that alone and thus I'm thrilled that it seems like we'll get great weather once again for the Bray Airshow in the micro-climate we seem to have wrapped in the sheltering embrace of the Wicklow and Dublin Mountains as we are. ie. On Sunday it'll be great to see 80 thousand+ people in shorts and T-Shirts instead of 80 thousand drowned cats!!

Munstermac

On the other hand the people organizing the Shannon 70th Anniversary Airshow on Saturday can't be too pleased...

It wouldn't be so bad if ME had come out and apologized for it or even explained what happened but no just plough on and hope no body noticed or in their case they probably don't even care if people did notice.

There must be a lot of other people other than me especially farmers who have had a serious spanner thrown in their weekend plans.

As I said earlier..Grrrrrr.