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View Poll Results: Do you believe the weather forecasts?,
Yes they are accurate ALL the time 0 0%
Yes they are accurate MOST the time 16 66.67%
No they are not often accurate 3 12.50%
No i dont believe them 4 16.67%
Well I wont ever leave my Atari outside! 1 4.17%
Voters: 24. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 12-08-2010, 09:53 AM
 
Location: Buxton, England
6,990 posts, read 11,418,823 times
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They local BBC forecasts seem to be suitably accurate for sea level locations in the North West, but they can't really take into account Buxton's elevation (which keeps us on average 2 degrees cooler than everywhere else) so I take off a few degrees from the forecast to get a better idea of what it would be in Buxton.
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Old 12-08-2010, 06:38 PM
 
Location: Iowa
14,327 posts, read 14,623,274 times
Reputation: 13768
I voted #2, although forecasting around here isn't too bad. They always give the forecast and we are always the exception rather than the rule. Cooler near the lake, lake effect snow, highest totals closer to Lake Michigan, rarely is there a forecast where we aren't mentioned separately and Green Bay isn't that far away.
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Old 12-08-2010, 07:17 PM
 
Location: USA East Coast
4,429 posts, read 10,365,383 times
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It’s not their accuracy that’s the problem…it the way they hype any significant weather event that is.

The Weather Channel hypes severe weather in the spring…hurricanes in summer and fall…and snow in winter to the max they can. If there is no storms...they hype the threat. If there is no threat...they hype the threat of a threat. With all due respect to them…most Americans know that twisters hit the plains once in once in a while in spring, a hurricane has hit New Orleans or Miami before, and a snowstorm in Chicago is common in winter.

Why do they feel the need to market the event?
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Old 12-09-2010, 11:11 AM
 
Location: Golden, CO
2,611 posts, read 3,590,488 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wavehunter007 View Post
It’s not their accuracy that’s the problem…it the way they hype any significant weather event that is.

The Weather Channel hypes severe weather in the spring…hurricanes in summer and fall…and snow in winter to the max they can. If there is no storms...they hype the threat. If there is no threat...they hype the threat of a threat. With all due respect to them…most Americans know that twisters hit the plains once in once in a while in spring, a hurricane has hit New Orleans or Miami before, and a snowstorm in Chicago is common in winter.

Why do they feel the need to market the event?
I agree. Where I used to live it was always hot and humid in Deep South Texas. When they could they'd hype any t-storms or cold fronts. It'll be 7 days out and you'd see that we'd cool down significantly and then as each day crept closer, I'd notice that "cool" temp rose as well. By the time it was about two days away or the day before, the forecasters would say something like "it's not as strong as we thought or it will miss us". Unless something was 30% probability or higher, the forecasters in south Texas wouldn't even put it in the forecast. I noticed here in Denver they show snow flurries possible Saturday morning, but the probability is 20%. But we are in desperate need of snow they live on that 20%, and then we get dissapointed when it doesn't happen.
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Old 12-09-2010, 02:16 PM
 
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
2,678 posts, read 5,069,702 times
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Forecasters around here just seem to be picking numbers out of a hat. Today was meant to be sunny and 25 C but it's currently 10:15 AM and overcast with 13 C!
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Old 12-09-2010, 03:01 PM
 
Location: Wellington and North of South
5,069 posts, read 8,600,995 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChesterNZ View Post
Forecasters around here just seem to be picking numbers out of a hat. Today was meant to be sunny and 25 C but it's currently 10:15 AM and overcast with 13 C!
Correct for me locally about 85% of the time. Applying my local knowledge in addition to that leaves very few surprises.

Your temp. should get a good kick upwards when the NW air arrives properly.
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Old 12-09-2010, 03:15 PM
 
Location: Perth, Western Australia
9,589 posts, read 27,811,439 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RWood View Post
Correct for me locally about 85% of the time. Applying my local knowledge in addition to that leaves very few surprises.

Your temp. should get a good kick upwards when the NW air arrives properly.
About 85% accurate here too.

The only thing that surprises me are when the temps fail to warm until after solar-noon, if at all.
Like a summer day, low of 15 C/59 F high of 23 C/73 F and partly cloudy skies...
only it stays overcast and is still 15-16 C at 3-4 pm.

I would say we get 5-10 days a year that are nothing like the forecast made 24 hrs earlier for temps.

For cloud conditions,
I would say 10-20 days a year where we might swap full overcast for sunny skies or vice versa.

For precip,
it seems very rare that the are wrong for Toronto as rarely experience "Lake Effect";
(which does happen if we get a stiff east wind )
1-5 days a year the precip predictions could be way off?
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Old 12-09-2010, 03:35 PM
 
927 posts, read 1,948,134 times
Reputation: 1017
Quote:
Originally Posted by wavehunter007 View Post
It’s not their accuracy that’s the problem…it the way they hype any significant weather event that is.

The Weather Channel hypes severe weather in the spring…hurricanes in summer and fall…and snow in winter to the max they can. If there is no storms...they hype the threat. If there is no threat...they hype the threat of a threat. With all due respect to them…most Americans know that twisters hit the plains once in once in a while in spring, a hurricane has hit New Orleans or Miami before, and a snowstorm in Chicago is common in winter.

Why do they feel the need to market the event?
Another example.....The featured story on the Weather Channel this morning was the "severe" and "unusual" cold wave that is predicted to annoy people as far south as Lake Okeechobee by Sunday morning. Maximum temperatures are only expected to rise to 0 (-18) or slightly less in the Arrowhead and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Further south Atlanta and Memphis will struggle to see 30 degrees (-1) and folks living in Arcadia, La Belle and Immokalee may wake up to frost on the ground.

Unusual, yes, but this thing was hyped almost to apocalyptic levels. One would think the Ice Age has arrived. In comparison to storied cold blasts in the past, the clipper coming up is actually pretty small beans. There were cold snaps, worse than this one's predicted to be, that over ran the nation's midsection and south only last year.
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Old 12-09-2010, 03:35 PM
 
193 posts, read 376,881 times
Reputation: 196
The short-term forecast is usually accurate here too. Just forecast rain and 98% of the time they'll be right. Where I live, a lot of people ***** about the forecasters being wrong but we live near trees and hills so it often rains uexpectedly. We get a lot of showers. They are usually very accurate with their wind forecasts which is important as we get a lot of disruptive winds.
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Old 12-10-2010, 10:52 AM
 
Location: motueka nz
497 posts, read 1,088,240 times
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Reasonably accurate around here, but the odd event slips past them. There are several phrases that serve well such as "Rain in the western ranges" or, "Fine with a chance of showers". They could apply to about half the days of the year. Speaking of hype, weather reporters often seem to get flown all over the country to report on events that aren't unusual.
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