It’s been another week of extreme drought here in the UK. The drought, which has led to a ban on using hosepipes, has been falling constantly. In fact, I just popped out for a few moments and I was covered in drought, making my hair, my clothes, the things I was carrying, all completely dry and in need of hydrating. The drought has been so bad that the hedge that my neighbour moans about has risen at least a metre in the last five days.
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| Some mental woman enjoying the, er, drought |
Ok, we have a problem in the UK.
The simple facts are that we don’t collect enough water for modern day consumption needs. We are collecting as if the demand is the same as it was in the 1950s.
Instead of investing in infrastructure to ensure we hold enough reserves to cover those regular periods when it isn’t raining, the various utility companies are far too busy using the money to pay bonuses and large dividends to the non-UK based shareholders. Maybe they would do something about serving their customers if they were fined for each day they have to ration water.
It doesn’t help in the great scheme of things when the Met Office (another organisation that costs us a fortune and pays massive bonuses to its people at the top) is completely incapable of making correct long range weather forecasts.
Did they see the rain coming? Nope, they didn’t.
On March 23rd the Met Office issued its confusingly worded sooth sayings about April, May and June. Confusing, because the Met office says it’s for “April and the average of the AprilMayJune period for the United Kingdom as a whole.” Well, that kind of phraseology is human friendly!
It gets worse. They say, “The probability that UK precipitation for AprilMayJune will fall into the driest of our five categories is 20-25% whilst the probability that it will fall into the wettest of our five categories is 10-15% (the 1971-2000 climatological probability for each of these categories is 20%).“
Eh? I know that they make the Bible confusing and hard to understand to give it mystical qualities and to assert power over others, but why does the Met Office have to deliver forecasts using this kind of babble?
They do include a summary though, “The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drierthanaverage conditions for AprilMayJune as a whole, and also slightly favours April being the driest of the 3 months.“
Ha ha ha ha ha. Twats!
Translating this into human English, on March 23rd, the Met Office with its Millions of Pounds worth of computer equipment that we pay a fortune for, was telling us that April would more likely be dry than wet. Yes, “drier than average”.
Well, bloody hell, if April has been ‘drier than average’, wtf is ‘average’? Under the sea?
April has been setting records in some areas of the UK for the most rainfall in, well, ever. There have been flood warnings, flash floods, and constant rain in some areas. Not just April showers, some with large hailstones and heavy sleet. There’s been water water everywhere but not a drop to drink.
Why oh why oh why couldn’t the Met Office predict any of this? Surely it’s time to put them on notice and to punt around for other organisations with a far greater understanding of, well, the weather. If others are more viable, then out the Met Office, and in the new team.
Certainly, if they can’t properly predict what’s happening two weeks ahead, they shouldn’t have such a hold over minds when they predict catastrophic global warming changes set for 20 or 30 years ahead. Maybe if they stopped trying to sing from the eco-loonies climate catastrophe hymn-sheet and concentrated on trying to forecast the weather, they’d actually learn how to get at least that right.
Certainly, bonuses should not be paid for any year during which they’ve got it so very wrong. I can forecast that that would mean bonuses wouldn’t get paid ever!
England's England 
“the Met Office (another organisation that costs us a fortune and pays massive bonuses to its people at the top)”
Wrong.
The met office is run as a trading fund as part of the department of business with set commercial targets to meet. Bonuses are withheld pay that is only released when they meet the targets. They currently generate a profit, i.e. the amount of money they give back to the government from selling their forecast services to industry is greater than the amount they receive in funding. This means they actually earn more money for the taxpayers.
Also if you know an organization that can forecast greater than one month ahead and be accurate more than 100% of the time please let me know, last time I checked it wasn't possible. The met office are one of the highest ranked operational forecasting center's in the world. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who/accuracy
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Well Bob,with that bit of rather depressing knoledge of yours,I dont think there is any hope at all for any of us.
We seem, as a nation,hell bent on throwing money at any Company or Organisation that does'nt supply the goods and that includes this absolutely disasterous Goverment!
As for “highest ranked” I think most of us could fill in the blanks and tell you what we think they are highest ranking at!
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The UK Met Office are quite good at short term weather forecasting – and that's it!
Anything beyond that is beyond them.
They prove time after time that their multi million pound super computers are no better than pine cones when it comes to seasonal or longer range.
The really sad thing is that their useless super computer is the same one that is predicting catastrophic man made global warming – and our government is spending billions in order to react to their warmist agenda.
Have a look at the cet temperature graphs and tell me, honestly, whether you can see evidence of anything other than long term, gentle, warming.
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“..if you know an organization that can forecast greater than one month ahead and be more accurate more than 100% of the time..”
Well, to be honest, there isn't a greater accuracy that 100% accuracy, to have an accuracy that's “more than 100%” is impossible in this physical world and probably strays into quantum mechanics.
Also, it's worth noting that the Met Office derives most of its income from selling its services and training packages to the BBC, a publicly funded body. So, really, the public are paying a fortune for their constant stream of misinformation.
Bonuses were paid to those at the top during their disgraced period of wrongly forecasting the barbecue summer and failing to notice one of the worst winters ever – the one where we were ran out of road salt because the 'authorities' had believed it would be a mild winter from the predictions issued by the Met Office.
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The local evening weather forecast in the SE seems to mainly focus on what it did today. They are getting quite good at forecasting history and spend more than half their allocated 2 minutes showing pictures and animated charts of what it did, before sneaking in what it might do tomorrow some weather for the following 3 days that may or may not happen – as the weather changes, you know.
As poor old Michael Fish drives down from London many days to spend 2 minutes presenting the weather for Kent & East Sussex, you have to assume there is some serious remuneration involved in telling you what the weather was today and having a guess at tomorrow.
Perhaps they should ask farmers – especially shepherds, apparently – who usually know what's going on for the next day or two by the behaviour of plants, birds, animals, cloud formations and the colour of the sky. Give them an electronic gadget each to feed back to the Met Office. Include it in their farm subsidy T&Cs….
And then there's pine cones and old Ethel Higgin's corns.
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“the Met Office derives most of its income from selling its services and training packages to the BBC”
this is incorrect
The met office's biggest customer is defence. I.e. the RAF and the Army.
Second biggest is the PWS or public weather service, this is the information provided to governemnt agencies to help prepare for upcoming weather..
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us
As for “failing to notice one of the worst winters ever” please see the following case studies highlighting met office performance over recent weather events. Some of this information saves lives http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who/how/case-studies
note also the positive customer feedback. And the warnings correctly issued
Bonuses are paid based on quantifiable numerical measures. As I said before a 100% accuracy is nigh on impossible so it is possible to still hit targets and miss with the odd forecast.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/weather/numerical-modelling/verification/how-accurate
Please also see this report produced by independent consulting company pa consulting (http://www.paconsulting.com/welcome/) on the public weather service http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/h/o/PWSCG_benefits_report.pdf
I appreciate it's long.. the summary is as follows:
“Overall findings
The PWS delivers an exceptional return on investment
The public values the Met Office's services at £353.2 million.
Valuation of benefit from the Cabinet Office, Environment Agency and Civil Aviation Authority showed a minimum additional contribution to the UK economy and society of at least £260.5 million per annum.”
If you have quantifiable evidence showing otherwise I'd like to see it
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