Wish

iTrader: (2)

Looks like we are in for a hard winter ......

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...449143,00.html

boomer

According to recent Met Office/BBC guidelines, "This winter will see many people feeling very warm and comfortable, and a lot will have electricity, gas and heating"



mb

Petem95

Isnt this a fairly regular news story at this time of year? "Winter to be freezing, predictions of millions dying as UK runs out of gas" etc etc

Probably just turn out to be another average winter.

OllyK

If they could reliably predict the weather for a couple of days time, I'd be more interested in what they reckon it will be doing in a month or 2

Tim-Grove

Think there must be some journo sitting in an office someware totally out of ideas so he decides to fall back on the annual “Hard Winter” story.

David Lock

Going to be dark tonight

NotoriousREV

If the Met Office says it will be a cold winter, I'm stocking up on the Factor 15

OllyK

The last truely hard winter I saw was when I was at primary school. Sufficient snow that you had to actually dig the snow off the drive first rather than just drive over the couple of inches that are there. If a snow plough hadn't been up the road first, then you weren't getting through, even in a 4x4. Now those were hard winters...
...damn posting in the wrong thread, where's the nostaligia one gone again??

Vegescoob

Insurance policy.
They say bad, it isn't, phew never mind.
It's bad and they didn't warn us, well they get roasted.

LG John

I'm getting f*cking sick of this!!!! EVERY WINTER: 'It's going to be freezing, lots of snow, etc, etc' and I get my hopes up but we get pishy rain!! EVERY SUMMER: 'It's going to be boiling, heatwaves, drought, etc, etc' and I get my hopes up but we get pishy rain!!

When are the idiots that dream this crap up going to admit that the UK's climate is principally rain with varying degrees of clarity and warmth but never extreme!

hedgehog

I suspect that these predictions are based upon the state of the North Atlantic Oscillation which can tend to give us very cold winters, most likely in the later part of the winter. I believe that the predictions have about 2/3 chance of being correct and that they are saying this winter may be in the coldest third.

The media, of course, hate science but love to create stories and so are probably not dead keen to tell you that they are dealing with probabilities.

The "black out" story is part of the government plan for nuclear power. Basically they need to get nuclear back on the agenda and the best way to do this is to tell people living in towns that there might be blackouts if it is cold. The administration have already taken the green nutters for a walk down the "CO2 causes global warming" road and so the greens now have to be seen to support energy generation which does not produce CO2. So, the green nuts can't object too loudly despite the fact that they have been conned into this position.

With this in mind the administration should have a fairly clear run at getting the nuclear programme restarted after a long period when this would have been impossible due to pressure from the greens leading public opinion. It is interesting to reflect that the man made global warming scam was introduced into British politics by an advisor to Thatcher in about 1983. I can't say if the long term intention was to push nuclear power but certainly at that time Thatcher was building up to the 1984 miners strike and needed some solid anti-coal strategy behind her. If she could paint coal as dirty, especially in the eyes of the generally leftie and politically active green nuts, then that was another string to her bow in the fight against the miners.

It is interesting to reflect on how many organisations and even governments have seen the potential of man made global warming and have applied themselves to using it to their advantage. It also worries me slightly that we now live in a country where telling the truth about the weather can be a dodgy political move and where the combination of a lie about how hot it is going to get along with predictions of especially cold weather are going to be used to control a population who can't see the contradiction.

ru'

Luckily the silver-foil helmet I've made now protects me from the evil the black helicopters are broadcasting directly into my mind!

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Well I agree with the posters who mention the total and utter unreliability of the met office forecast. They ought to be prosecuted .

It's a regular occurrence that they say things like "The day after tomorrow will be mostly warm and dry with showers in the far north." By the next day they've changed it to "P*ssing down everywhere", (although not in those words ) How can it change SO drastically?

About all they're good for is showing satellite pics of what the weather IS DOING or actually DID.

They're taking money under false pretences.

And I've e-mailed 'em and told 'em so!

Alcazar

Simon C

This story comes out every year, we havent had a decent snow fall since I was a kid, and by decent I mean a couple of feet

1 of the guys at the dive club doesn't trust the met office forcasts, and he used to work for them!!!!!

SPEN555

Same where I live.

I drove home last night and outside temp gauge said 19 deg C! wtf, it's October! Sweating me fookin knackers off lol!

We will probably get one week which is cold and then they can say 'I told you so'

Reality

Come to Aberdeen - We get real weather all the time

pslewis

Is this from the same source that says House Prices are Still Rising???

I'll treat it with the same contempt - thank you very much

Pete

tmo

Brendan Hughes

When has the Met Office predicted house price rises?

NotoriousREV

They couldn't do any worse than pissylewis

IWatkins

I'm not going to comment on some of the posters comments above because of who I work for.

However, I will say that we do have the "Big Freeze Story" many recent years and the source is usually some independent weather "consultancy" that does it based on seaweed (or whatever). This gets them publicity, good or bad, doesn't matter.

This years *prediction* of a *potentially* below average temperature winter is based on scientific information. The Met Office (by law I believe) has to tell the infrastructure providers of the country (power, water, transport, health etc) if there is a risk of very cold weather for planning purposes. This they have done.

Of course, the press then get hold of it and turn it from "a risk of very cold weather" to "We *will* be freezing this winter and buried in snow drifts".

Interestingly, everyone thinks it will be cold and lots of snow etc. But in fact the Met Office is going for a drier winter than average.

Cheers

Ian

OllyK

Would this be colder than last year's "Arctic temperatures" that turned out to be more like -4 or -5 C?

So were pretty much back to "It'll probably be cold this winter and it may be slightly colder and drier than last year, but then again it might not"??

Brendan Hughes

Ian, this is probably like asking a pilot what he thinks of balsa-wood rubber band toy planes, but do you have any views on those Oregon Scientific home weather stations? (Barometer, Hygrometer, Thermometer...)

I got one at a reduced price recently, scratching a long-held itch, and TBH I think I'm happy I got the discount...

hedgehog

As pointed out previously this is a statistical prediction which indicates that there is about a 2/3 chance of this winter being in the coldest third of winters. This isn't about predicting exact temperatures on a given day but is related to the 7.8 year NAO. What the press make of it is their own business but the government are associating the potential for power blackouts in a very cold winter with the need for nuclear power and so are using it to their advantage which is interesting to observe. In turn this feeds the press who are currently crying out for doom and gloom stories and so there are interesting social forces in action even in something as simple as stating a probability that the winter will be among the coldest third of recorded winters.

No matter what the actual weather turns out to be like it is interesting to watch various parties try and use the potential for cold conditions as a means of social engineering.

22BUK

Maybe we should take a leaf out of Moscow's book...

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1295274.html?menu=

Brendan Hughes

yeah, that's Luzhkov....

scoobfan

So What !!

Rob

IWatkins

Hi Brenden,

Not at all, I've got a few Oregon Scientific instruments myself.

On the whole very good and fairly accurate. Only one to watch is the Hygrometers, they tend to be a bit iffy, especially at extremes. But overall, good value I think.

Cheers

Ian

mattvortex

As someone who works outside all day, i do tend to take notice of the weather reports,though i am really wasting my time ,as i would say from experience that they get it wrong more than they do correctly-and thats only forcasting for 1-2 days! Accurate weather forcasts are not with us yet, people!