The Canadian Weather Office have said that they got their 3 month forecast for the early winter wrong. They predicted a colder than usual winter based on La Nina activity but the jet stream did its own thing and so western Canada got a warmer than usual early winter. The web site for the Weather Office does point out that 3 month predictions have a high chance of being wrong, hardly better than an informed guess. However that has not stopped a lot of mud slinging at the expense of the forecasters by the ignorant and discourteous.
The Weather Office has now changed their way of predicting temperatures and precipitation based on a 30 year average and other factors. They give 3 maps each for precipitation and for temperature, giving probability of above normal, normal, and below normal. This is splendidly confusing to my mind but it seems, if I have got it right, that we will probably have slightly colder than normal temperatures and slightly more precipitation for the next 3 months. As the weekly weather forecast seems to change from day to day, it is not surprising that longer than that is a guess.
Norms for the time of year are -6C/0C we are about 3 degrees warmer at the moment but heading for a colder sunnier few days.
Previous Journals
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Hyacinthus Flowering
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1. Path bed garden
Later Journals
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Broad beans and Sweet Peas sprouting
Geranium Purple Pillow Flowering, Golden Broom Flowering, Shrubby Beard-Tongue Flowering, and Con...
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Diane's Iris Blooming, Azalea 'Lemon Lights' Blooming, and Bay Treating
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Tulipa sylvestris Blooming
Comments
Amarylis wrote:
The Met Office here in the UK did the same thing about 2-3 years ago with a similar result! In their long range forecast for the summer we were told to expect a “Barbecue Summer” – it turned out to be a damp, cold squib! Like the people in Canada, the people in the UK were furious as well! After that reaction & the apologies & excuses they have not repeated the experience! (Once bitten, …)
Weather prediction is such an inexact science that it will take many, many more years, (if ever!), before any sort of certainly 3 months in advance can be achieved. The Met Office has one of the most advanced supercomputers in the world for forecasting the weather, & to be honest, they don’t do such a bad job of it, in my opinion. But they won’t commit themselves, wisely, to more than 7 days advance prediction.
Posted on 06 Feb 12 (over 1 year ago)
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