Wednesday 31 December 2008

Bookies should thank Piers Corbyn

If one goes to the homepage of weatheraction.com right now then you can see these words from Piers Corbyn "Storms and floods 12th & 13th December 'stunning success' for WeatherAction", followed by more words of self congratulation. Unfortunately for Piers the whole effect is ruined by the following near the top and in larger font: "Xmas Eve - Major storm; Xmas Day - Snow!" Ahem, "Major storm ... Snow" - I don't think so Piers!! And he had been forecasting another of his storms for the end of the month - it's not happening Piers!

We have been, and still are, under the influence of a large anticyclone, what meteorologists refer to as a 'blocking high'. Good name as it blocks areas of low pressure trying to come in off the Atlantic. What we have here is another example of Piers painting a totally wrong scenario, not just something slightly wrong in detail. And of course this anticyclone has been affecting the whole country i.e. I'm looking at the big picture not just Devon and Cornwall.

With Piers it's so difficult to deduce that his methods work when his forecasts do turn out to be accurate if other forecasts by him for nearby time periods are so terribly terribly wrong. Thinking about December for a moment there is a very good chance of getting a bad storm affecting a large part of the country at some stage and the one mid month Piers is taking credit for is one such. Now hold on a moment, didn't Piers flag up six possible storms for December? He is allowing himself a tolerance of + or - one day in the timing of the storm (fair enough in my opinion) so any one storm could occur on any one of three days. Multiplying 3 by 6 is 18 according to me and any one day out of 18 for a 31 day month aren't bad odds in my opinion! So here's the question about the forecast by Piers for the storm on 12th/13th: did his techniques work or did he just strike lucky?

Finally, why I decided to use the title "Bookies should thank Piers Corbyn" can be deduced from a link to the 'Daily Star' from the 'Latest News' page on the WeatherAction website. The media story quotes Piers saying the following: "Our advice to beat the credit crunch is to place a bet on a white Christmas because it's never looked more likely". The bookies had stood to lose a lot of money (not only because of Piers it has to be said) but are now smiling after a good Christmas for them.

Piers was full of himself getting some bad weather correctly forecast much earlier in the month. Will he now publicly apologise for his wrong advice to those who bet on a white Christmas?

4 comments:

BF said...

Again, wouldn't your time be better spent exposing the complete failure of all the 18 CO2 driven IPCC climate models to forewarn the public of the current downturn in global temperatures and the dangers to humanity global cooling engenders?

Corbyn's forecasts have been independently verified to be significantly skilled. On the other hand, the IPCC, WMO and our own Met Office show no skill whatsoever!

There is no progressive content in a lie. Please reconsider your position in light of rapidly emerging objective evidence.

brian in the tamar valley said...

Please take time to read my preceding post on the subject of Piers Corbyn. I have absolutely no need to reconsider my position on this.

Let me say again that I'm only looking at the accuracy (or lack of) Mr Corbyn's forecasts. My entries that seem to concern you so much are NOTHING to do with climate change, a separate subject altogether.

Matthew said...

So nobody is interested in Piers'successes which are more common than his failures.

If anybody buys his forecasts these blocking highs are mentioned in the uncertainties.

I think it's fantastic his prediction for the Tropical cyclone in the Indian ocean about 2 weeks ago.

I will post the video link.

How about a public debate with Piers Corbyn if he's such a failure in your eyes.

Also the met office were wondering about there being a few flurries of snow round xmas nearer the time.

But nobody has a go at them.

Matthew said...

http://vimeo.com/2736721

Also there were widely 6-8 inches of snow in New York state and 10 inches I saw in one place.

So yes snow deluges exactly when he said so.

Another astounding success.

His forecasts over the last year have been about 70% accurate as I've seen all of them.

He might be 80% accurate in terms of monthly summaries for being essentially correct.

Accuracy expected to be a bit less for exact details of things ie 70%.