 Poster: A snowHead
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....but the Met Office is not so sure 
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Metcheck.com predicts regular cold snaps until Christmas and prolonged bleak spells in January.
The firm correctly forecast the deluges that hit Britain in the summer.
But the long view is not shared by all. The Met Office, which issues a 4-week forecast, said it is "very difficult" to forecast so far in advance. |
Read the full BBC report....
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I particularly liked the comments from Dominic Woollartt, Met Office spokesman...
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"We are expecting the weather to turn cool, but further than that it's hard to say."
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And especially, when asked for his winter forecast ....
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"We expect temperatures to drop in winter".
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(Surprise, surprise, you have to be a premium member of Metcheck to read the full winter forecast!)
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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One commentator remarked that you have to express these extremes to get the publicity and I'm sure that Metcheck.com are enjoying this moment.
It would be interesting to check their prediction about 22-27 November during that period.
I hope that they are right though!!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Haven't read those articles, but MetCheck aren't forecasting extremes. More what used to be an average winter. It's an interesting idea- that of forecasting beyond realistic model range. There's no real way you can get specifics right (beyond luck), but there is something to be said for being able to forecast general trends (or anomalies from the averages).
Incidentally, I think the MetO spokesman was using a touch of dryness in his comments.
Metcheck are sticking their neck out a bit. They did it and were right about the summer, they'll be lambasted if they get it wrong though. 
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Excellent news - if true !
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Strangley enough, yesterday I was told by someone who's just returned from Alpe d'Huez that one of the old-timers there had told him that this winter is going to be worse (better) than normal.
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The phrase about "coldest on record" is also inaccurate. metcheck said coldest this century, which actually means colder than the last 4 winters.
Also, it's worth mentioning that this does only apply to the UK and not Europe (AFAIA).
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"It is time to ditch the wellies for woollies. This winter will be a lot more cold and less wet than previous winters."
Whilst I like the cold idea... the less wet bit doesnt sound so good.
Alternatively... the fact that we will be cold and dry means that the winter storms will be passing around us so the alps will get snow and snow and snow. Maybe.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| skanky wrote: |
The phrase about "coldest on record" is also inaccurate. metcheck said coldest this century, which actually means colder than the last 4 winters.
Also, it's worth mentioning that this does only apply to the UK and not Europe (AFAIA). |
Scotland should be OK then.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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www.theweatheroutlook.com goes into details
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for the first time in YEARS, there are no sunspots visible from the Earth, and the expectation is that solar activity will remain very low in the months ahead. This should significantly increase the chances of a colder winter for western Europe. Couple this with what appears to be a general cooling trend in the northern hemisphere during the last few months and we may have the makings of something very interesting ahead of us!
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Its quite optimistic at present isn't it, although I found January last year plenty cold enough at -15 in the village at Les Arcs
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I'd have thought that Metcheck's forecast is based on the long-range models that are available to all the Met organisations (government & private). What they do to that data, and whether it actually improves its reliability (of which even the producers of the model(s) doubt at that range), I don't know.
Shot in the dark or not, and over-hyped by the media or not, let's hope they're right.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Martin Nicholas wrote: |
| Its quite optimistic at present isn't it, although I found January last year plenty cold enough at -15 in the village at Les Arcs |
Didn't last long though! If I remember right, there was just a very few days like that following a warm December and early January during which conditions were not great...
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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The Metcheck forecast is now available free. Doesn't quite match the sensationalism in the media. I find it slightly surprising that they put 80% confidence on a situation with specific model divergence and say that that's the month they'll clarify later.
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Very Cold Season - 10%
Cold Season - 15%
Slightly Colder Season - 25%
Average Season - 20%
Slightly Milder Season - 10%
Mild Season - 10%
Very Mild Season - 10% |
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Poster: A snowHead
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Metcheck are sticking their neck out a bit. They did it and were right about the summer, they'll be lambasted if they get it wrong though
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If, come next Spring, they turn out to have got it wrong who'll remember their prediction and what news organisation would bother to report that it was wrong? Only if they get it right will we hear any more on the subject as Metcheck'll pop up crowing about it.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Ah the old ways of weather forecasting are the best. As a country bumkin I can confirm that this year old mother nature is expecting a harsher winter as she has provided a bumper crop of berries this autumn. 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Chris B, you mean it was a warm, wet summer then. 
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skanky, surprisingly there does seem to be a grain of truth to Chris B's, old wives tale, but for what reason I have no idea, mother nature is stange and mankind still does not fully understand her
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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And another thing! Since when did winter run from Nov-Jan? 
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skanky, Its a mystic art is weather forecasting. This is connected with an ealier thread when I mentioned how at one with Nature us peasant farmers are.
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Chris B, yeah, sorry it's just one I've had thrown at me a lot recently. It's funny though, how quickly you notice the weather moving from London to a more rural place and getting a garden - thing is I can't compare to previous years, yet.
D G Orf, there may be something in it, but a few year's correlation in estimates doesn't necessarily mean a connection. Anyway, if it's true, we'll have a similar winter to last year as we have the same amount where we are (I can only compare to last year).
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brian
brian
Guest
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Chris B,
Plenty haws (berries), plenty snaws. As they apparently used to say up here.
There are loads more rowanberries than there have been for the last few years, so maybe the Scottish sking industry will be saved after all, hurrah !
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skanky, having lived here for the last 18 years I can say I've only seen a similar quantity of berries once or twice before, of course it does seem to be a localised method of forecasting, we should really be asking those snowheads in the alps what their local flaura and fauna are doing, I add fauna as I have noticed that the sqirrels seem very busy collecting seeds this year 
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D G Orf, squirrel activity the same (have a bird table at home and a family of squirrels outside my window at work), too.
The berries can only be affected by the past weather (spring and early summer especially). If what's caused them affects the following winter, then fair enough. But there's an awful long time between those two times for things to change.
I won't say it's rubbish, and I hope it is true but it must be a tenuous link. Incidentally, a cold winter this winter would prove it to be true. I'd want at least 50 years data to accept it as a reliable method.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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skanky, Don't be sorry, I am posting with tongue firmly in cheek. Anyone who can reliably predict the weather more than a few days in advance would not be sat at their desk wishing the ski season would start.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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skanky, well the old wives tales were used for several hundered years before the met office got supercomputers, the same old wives knew that chewing willowbark helped with pain relief more than a few years before asprin came on the market. Just because we don't understand why it works or cannot prove the link scientifically does not mean we should ignore the old wives tales
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Are we being unfair to old wives? Should the term in fact be "Mature Partners' Stories"
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You know it makes sense.
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Metcheck may be sticking their necks out, but Fox's US forecasters surely can't be accused of the same sin:
"There are equal chances of warmer, cooler or near-normal temperatures this winter in the Northeast, Midwest and parts of Southwest."
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Do you think they're hedging their bets?
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Poster: A snowHead
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D G Orf, yes but old wives tales said that cows lay down when it will rain (it doesn't even necessarily mean they are tired). Some old wives tales are right, some are sort of right, and some are wrong. Being right sometimes does not make you right all the time.
If you have a neat rhyme that gets things right sometimes, it sort of works better than just shrugging your shoulders.
I've seen the correlation between aspirin and willow. I would still like to see a correlation of berry crop size and winter temperatures. If it's a reasonably accurate forecaster, it must exist, surely?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Acacia wrote: |
Metcheck may be sticking their necks out, but Fox's US forecasters surely can't be accused of the same sin:
"There are equal chances of warmer, cooler or near-normal temperatures this winter in the Northeast, Midwest and parts of Southwest." |
That's actually the NOAA forecast which will be updated later this month. TLOng range forecasting is generally done by ensembles (many model runs using slightly tweaked inputs) and looking to see how they group. If you get a reasonably even spread then you get a forecast like that one. If you get bunching, then you tend to get higher probablilities (outliers are single, or few, runs that diverge from the majority). That they have to hedge their bets shoes how difficult forcasting for that far in the future is. They will be using the same (or similar) models and data as Metcheck, BTW.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I did a look up on the internet and found some all be it not very persuasive indicators that the more beries = cold/long winter may have an element of truth to it, however it only seems to work with established plants that are native to the area, thus a 30 year old native holly bush grown from seed may give you a reasonable indication but a fruit tree from Japan (no matter what its age) will not. In fact all the sites I found indicated that holly was one of the most effective plants but it must be a local holly.
Urgently required all snowheads to check out the quantity of berries on thir local holly bushes ! 
Note that I'm not sure if the old wives tale refers to a longer winter or a colder one or possibly both, over the years people seem to have lost the ability to remember the fine details of many of these tales.
By the way, cows don't lie down in the rain but they will often lie down before a thunderstorm, this could be a similar effect to the way that animals and birds can apparently predict ? earthquakes, possibly something to do with magnetic fields ?
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| Quote: |
By the way, cows don't lie down in the rain but they will often lie down before a thunderstorm, this could be a similar effect to the way that animals and birds can apparently predict ? earthquakes, possibly something to do with magnetic fields ?
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I can predict a thunderstorm, too so I have no problems with that. Earthquakes could be to do with pre-quakes or similar, so again, within certain limits again no problem. All of these though have obvious correlations.
I've also seen the berries thing limited to holly, as well as people claiming other berries, too. I'll be happier accepting native species as over the course of thousands (or more) of years, even a very weak correlation (e.g. high berry crop means a 40% chance of colder winter) could have an effect on which plants survive, or not. However, it doesn't necessarily show that it's reliable (and 40% could easily get it old wives tale status).
Incidentally, if we think people are prepared to go into it for ten years or so, I'd happily try and sort out some sort of annual "holly watch".
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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skanky, I have to agree with the fact that we need more data, but the problem is that we need the data from the mountain regions, unfortunately few of us fellow snowheads have the priviledge of living in such locations, maybe those of us that do could ask the locals if they have any similar old wives tales relating to winter snows
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D G Orf, I'll ask my sister. She's heard a few local ones (though the only one I remember is that the weather in Courmayeur and Chamonix are usually opposite).
If anyone wants to fund it though, I'm happy to do the research. Do you get much holly in the Alps?
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skanky, I'm not sure about holly but in recent years I have noticed a small scale invasion of Swtzerland by certain weed more commonly found in warmer climates and apparently used by some instead of tobacco
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D G Orf, probably grown from seeds fallen from chairlifts 
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I'd say yes except they often seem to be seen growing in pots or long lines in gardens well away from any lifts
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FAQ
