Weather Forecasting

Looking at my reddened skin this morning, I’m struck yet again by the sheer inability of the met office to predict the weather. Yesterday – Monday – was predicted to be on Sunday a cloudy day with occasional periods of sunshine. Not blazing sunshine. So I had chosen to wear a short sleeved shirt and thought I would buy sun cream as and when I needed it. I did check the weather forecast again at about 3 pm yesterday and it was forecasting sunshine for 3pm but that isn’t that impressive – I can’t imagine one needs a Cray supercomputer to tell you what the weather is right now.

So why on earth we are meant to believe the met office when they start telling us what the weather will be in 50 years time? Oh, I know that those for whom Channel 4 News, the BBC and the Guardian are the holy trinity of truthfulness and objectivity, the mantra is a knowing shake of the head and “but that is climate, not weather”. Which rather misses the point. Use the sophisticated model to predict accurately the weather for the next 24 hours and that should be the table stakes for the credibility of predictions for the years to come.

Anyway, forecast today was for clear skies and sun. View from the hotel this morning…enough said.