Potus ???

[peds]

12 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Plus for short term forecasting the rain radar map is pretty good

 

We've timed our teabreaks to the rain radar before. Crack on for another hour then late lunch in the truck, instead of break at the usual time and climb in the rain.

 

Technology is bloody brilliant. 

[AHPP]

Well imagine how much better it’d be if the private sector was doing it.  

[Steven P]

BBC rain cloud radar is good for me, gives me best times to go out on the paddleboard, generally within 5 mins given an hour look ahead, or up on the hills (enough data hours ahead of time to give me an estimated best time for a dry sandwich stop).

 

Apart from that, hundreds of uses for accurate forecasting in the UK, I am surprised that in the US they have no need for accurate weather forecasts. Imagine with no forecasts, our next holiday "Excuse me hotel, what is the weather going to do today?" "It's going to be summer" "So does that mean rain jacket or shorts" "All we know is it is July so the weather will be summer"

 

Vodaphone are doing some interesting stuff - Midlands way I think - the signal between phone masts degrades when humidity levels rise, coordinating between masts can pin point rain showers more accurately than radar. News story was this week, I think they do the same in the Netherlands.

 

For the finances, Gareth suggests they spend 5 times more on forecasting? For a landmass 40 times larger than the UK? Sounds like they are doing well for the money.

 

As for private vs public.... private sounds good till you look at the UKs privatised companies for comparison and the awesome job they are doing. It is a feature that doesn't lend itself to monetising really, there are no big profits, so the big investments won't be there and the big finances won't be there to rip out the profits to shareholders

[GarethM]

No you dullard, I'm suggesting scrapping both.

It's a bloated waste that could be done for a 1/4 of what they spend.

 

You'll find the privates already do provide a lot of data, sencrop being a big one in the agricultural sector as we can't trust the met office as they are usually wrong.

[Steven P]

But one of their base models is provided by the UK Met Office.... so trusted or not?

[GarethM]

18 minutes ago, Steven P said:

But one of their base models is provided by the UK Met Office.... so trusted or not?

And I think they're legally obligated to give the met office the data for free.

 

Which is real world data, not just a weather stations at the end of the runway.

 

As airport data is almost as pointless as those ones in built up towns, oh it's warm next to the concrete NSS or it's 5000c next to the shard.

[AHPP]

44 minutes ago, Steven P said:

As for private vs public.... private sounds good till you look at the UKs privatised companies for comparison and the awesome job they are doing.

Privatised generally means cronyised in governed countries like the UK. Look at water. A service you’re forced to buy but from one theoretically private entity. No competition. Privatised profits, socialised losses. True privatisation means the state getting out of the way entirely, not hanging on as a funnel.  

[Steven P]

2 hours ago, GarethM said:

And I think they're legally obligated to give the met office the data for free.

 

Which is real world data, not just a weather stations at the end of the runway.

 

As airport data is almost as pointless as those ones in built up towns, oh it's warm next to the concrete NSS or it's 5000c next to the shard.

 

 

I never realised that the Met Office only had monitoring stations on runways.

[GarethM]

5 minutes ago, Steven P said:

I never realised that the Met Office only had monitoring stations on runways.

They have them on runways and roof tops and plenty of others.

 

Not exclusively and I never said as much but be realistic is a big long expanse of concrete and tarmac really the best place for the hottest day?.

 

Which would you say has more accurate temperature and rainfall data, data from Dave's field amongst his 100 acres of grazing or Leeds Bradford airport?.

[Steven P]

Assuming your referring to this policy of placing weather station? Which kind of excludes exclusive placement of weather stations on runways and follows "internationally-agreed rigorous quality-control process"?

Weather stations

WEATHER.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

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The Met Office has a weather station network across the whole UK, with more than 200 automatic stations.

 

and these locations. So a quick check of the 90 or so in Scotland, 4 are in or around airports, hardly an overriding bias

 

Synoptic and climate stations

WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

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The map shows the current network of automatic (synoptic) and manual (climate) stations covering the UK.

 

 

and certainly a weather station at say, Prestwick airport is no reason for the Trumpeting Rapist (whoops, nearly wrote racist, that works too I guess), no reason for him to cancel US weather forecasting is it? Mind my view is if I have the opportunity to improve something, make it better or to cancel something that people rely on, my first port of call is improvements. I guess that is why my job is not POTUS (and they wouldn't let me anyway).

 

 

In fact, he'd like weather forecasting down there for his golf course I reckon. Cannot make money if it is rainy, so use the forecast to roster on staff for good weather and not so many for bad weather.