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Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

theguardian.com

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Re: Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

#21

Post by cryptoz »

s_kilk wrote: post #19
gioele wrote: post #17

Will the main requirement of the tender be being at least X% more accurate than the current provider? Or will it just be a matter of who will offer the cheapest service?

If weather predictions are basically fiction (which they seem to be), then we may as well go with the cheapest fiction.

Weather predictions are not fiction. Some businesses pay millions for a specific weather forecast (one that could dramatically influence the profitability of a venture) in order to enable better planning. A good example of the importance of weather and climate forecasting would be the Climate Corp sale to Monsanto for ~$1B.

Predicting the future is really really hard. Over the last few decades we've made a lot of progress and we're about to get a lot better, too.

Re: Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

#23

Post by Zenst »

binarymax wrote: post #8

I've lived in the UK for the past 8 years now (having lived in various places in the East Coast USA for the rest of my life). I learned quickly that English weather forecasts are useless past the current day. It is probably due to the geographical location. East Coast US was accurate to 3 to 5 days. I just use Dark Sky[0] to get weather for the next several hours, which is mostly accurate. Given the situation with th…

Agreed, many dynamics as far as UK weather concerned and probably the hardest country/area to do a forecast due to those dynamics.

Indeed even the Guardian reports this http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/sep/03/uk-weather-defies-...

Re: Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

#24

Post by rikkus »

tedajax wrote: post #4
rikkus wrote: post #3

I half-jokingly tell people that if they get their forecast from the BBC (via the Met), they should expect the inverse weather. I wonder if the BBC has checked the quality of the forecasts based on what actually happens? I use AccuWeather and the Aix Weather Widget (for Android) because they're nearly always right (where I live, at least) - and gives me much more useful information. For example, I can't translate the…

I actually learned that the rain percentage is not the percentage chance that it will rain but is in fact the percentage of the coverage area that they will expect to get rain. So 50% rain meaning no rain at all or rain for the whole day is entirely reasonable.

Reasonable unless you want your forecast to be at all useful!

Re: Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

#25

Post by rikkus »

DanBC wrote: post #6
rikkus wrote: post #3

I half-jokingly tell people that if they get their forecast from the BBC (via the Met), they should expect the inverse weather. I wonder if the BBC has checked the quality of the forecasts based on what actually happens? I use AccuWeather and the Aix Weather Widget (for Android) because they're nearly always right (where I live, at least) - and gives me much more useful information. For example, I can't translate the…

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/in-depth/science-behind-pro... First ghit. First duckduckgo hit.

And this matches what I thought it meant. It doesn't make it useful to me in real life, though.

Re: Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

#26

Post by Zenst »

tezza wrote: post #22

I'm sure the £4.5M bonus pool paid for 'improved performance' really stuck in the craw. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/met-office-st...

Indeed and also no details upon who will now run the contract is concerning in ommision and somewhat telling. So fun times ahead.

Re: Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

#27

Post by simonswords82 »

I'm a techie and I've been using the Met Office service more recently as part of obtaining my private pilots license.

Before I get to their ability to forecast correctly I need to say that their tech appears disorganised to say the least. Check out this garbage: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation/ga. Specifically the text under General Aviation services. They attempted to release a new version of the General Aviation interface, sending all the pilots at my local club in to a tizz. They fluffed the launch of this new interface so badly they were forced to hit reverse and reopen the old app. Looks like you can still register for the new app, but they're now supporting and maintaining the old app too. Oh and to use the new app you need to create a new account...I've no idea why.

If this is at all representative of the overall state of the Met Office websites and systems I'm not surprised they're not the first choice for the BBC.

Ok so that's not great. What about the weather predictions? Well, accepting that we live in a somewhat changeable part of the world here in the UK, and given that I'm not a meteorologist take this next bit with a pinch of salt. I was due to fly at 1pm today. I shit you not the Met Office website stated severe weather warnings with heavy rain due to hit at 3pm. I checked the forecast all morning and rain was pretty much guaranteed at 3pm. The forecast was so bad I warned my other half about it as she was due to drive long distance. 1pm rolls around and it starts raining lightly. Okay - this must be the start of the heavy rain, so I write off my flight. 3pm comes around and I shit you not, bright sunshine and it's stayed bright and sunny ALL afternoon. Literally the opposite of what was forecast. Apparently the heavy rain is now due tomorrow.

Obviously the Met Office site now shows sunny with clouds. Thanks Met Office, how very kind of you to update the weather forecast to match what you can see out of your windows.

Re: Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

#28

Post by ars »

simonswords82 wrote: post #27

I'm a techie and I've been using the Met Office service more recently as part of obtaining my private pilots license. Before I get to their ability to forecast correctly I need to say that their tech appears disorganised to say the least. Check out this garbage: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation/ga . Specifically the text under General Aviation services. They attempted to release a new version of the General Aviat…

I know nothing about the Met Office, but sometimes inaccurate weather like that happens because the bad weather moved elsewhere, or because it was in one part of the forecast area, and you were in another.

Next time it happens find a site like http://weatherspark.com/ and check the entire area and see if the bad weather actually is there, just not where you are.

Re: Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

#29

Post by ars »

binarymax wrote: post #8

I've lived in the UK for the past 8 years now (having lived in various places in the East Coast USA for the rest of my life). I learned quickly that English weather forecasts are useless past the current day. It is probably due to the geographical location. East Coast US was accurate to 3 to 5 days. I just use Dark Sky[0] to get weather for the next several hours, which is mostly accurate. Given the situation with th…

> East Coast US was accurate to 3 to 5 days

Interestingly in the US, the East Coast forecast is more accurate than the West Coast.

This is because the trade winds in the US mostly move West to East, so most of the Weather moves in that direction as well.

There are more weather sensors on land then in the Sea, so there is more data available to make a forecast with.

Re: Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract after 93 years

#30

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

tedajax wrote: post #4
rikkus wrote: post #3

I half-jokingly tell people that if they get their forecast from the BBC (via the Met), they should expect the inverse weather. I wonder if the BBC has checked the quality of the forecasts based on what actually happens? I use AccuWeather and the Aix Weather Widget (for Android) because they're nearly always right (where I live, at least) - and gives me much more useful information. For example, I can't translate the…

I actually learned that the rain percentage is not the percentage chance that it will rain but is in fact the percentage of the coverage area that they will expect to get rain. So 50% rain meaning no rain at all or rain for the whole day is entirely reasonable.

How does that work when the percentage is supposed to cover a small area, like a town?

FWIW I've found that combining the iPhone weather app with a rain radar app gives me usefully accurate predictions of rain.

The Met Office is useful for coarser extreme weather warnings, but I don't pay much attention to its daily forecasts.

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