Wednesday 10 June 2009

Piers Corbyn got last weekend right

I've made plenty of blog entries in the past about maverick weatherman Piers Corbyn and his forecasts. To tell the truth I haven't been following him much lately but when I turned to his weatheraction.com website the other day (can be viewed here) I was in for a pleasant surprise. When I first crossed swords with Piers he had a very amateur looking website, he would suddenly change to a different size font or a different colour and it was all scripted in a very 'tabloid' way. Well now his site has a much smoother and more professional look about it thank goodness! Interestingly, as can be seen from his homepage, he is now broadcasting on YouTube. Although not the most comfortable man in front of a camera, but a darn sight better in his broadcasts than Gordon Brown it has to be said, I have to congratulate him on using this medium. The number of viewers are pretty low at the moment but it's early days I guess.

In the past I've flagged up some real howlers by Piers and have been taken to task by some of his loyal disciples for, in their eyes, being unfair to him. Well I can only report what I see and the failure of Piers to admit his bad mistakes allied to his arrogance didn't help me to warm to him. One would no doubt have to buy his monthly forecasts and compare what they said with the reality over an extended period to make a really good judgement. It's the forecast he makes of the most severe events that get into the public domain and consequently get the most attention.

The end of May saw Piers make a forecast of a number of extreme weather events for the month of June, not just here but worldwide, and this can be read on his website and was repeated on the YouTube video. Regarding the UK he said this:
Around 06- 09 June 09 (Ew0928) Most of Ireland & Britain (espec E/SE) & adjacent Europe (eg Netherlands/ Belgium/ N France). Major thunderstorms hail & local floods with whirlwinds likely (80% confidence). I would say that is a pretty impressive bit of forecasting Mr Corbyn. Last weekend we had some rain in my part of the Tamar Valley but in the Dawlish, Exeter to Tiverton area it was much much worse with severe thunderstorms and associated flooding. Looking at the weathermaps other areas further east have suffered as well it would seem.

I'm pleased to give credit where it's due!

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