Environment Canada is a bit embarrassed.
People I know (including me) have been complaining this summer has been short, cold, and wet…the opposite of what forecasters with their computers and statisitics predicted.
This summer, it has been far worse. In fact, Mr. Verret said if he were to forecast the summer skill score, which won’t be crunched until next week, he would peg it at 37 to 40 per cent. That’s not significantly above sheer chance. That means Canadians got nearly as much accurate weather information this summer as they would have had without any forecast at all.
And that’s just for the temperature. What about precipitation?
“It’s hopeless,” Mr. Verret said. “There, we have no skill at all.”
This state of affairs weighs on the forecasters. “You’re only as good as your last forecast,” Mr. Phillips noted, sighing.
Mr. Verret is trying to come to terms with it.
“Being in the forecast business, you learn to be humble,” he said ruefully.
It’s been the coolest summer in 14 years, contrary to the warm dry forecast.
Winnipeg had the coldest summer on record. Crops froze in Saskatchewan. And Toronto chalked up about 125 fewer hours of summer sunshine than people have come to expect: just 700 compared to the normal 825.
Vancouver, Victoria and Yukon were some of the few parts of the country that were hot and dry.
If you looks at the statistics of forecasting a chimp would have been just as accurate. Fair enough. We move on. And since weather is the number one conversational topic in Canada we’ll be wondering what winter is going to be like. And Canada has lead the world in some areas of weather science.
I think though that these scientists at the Canadian Meteorological Centre should get out of the office and away from the stats once in awhile. Watch the birds, insects and animals. Check the plants and the bark on trees. Listen to farmers and people who work the land and sea. You know…what we used to do before super computers.
Ah well. Better luck next summer eh?
Japan
It is hurricane season in the Western Hemisphere and cyclone season in the Eastern. Japan’s northern islands are being hit hard by Typhoon Chaba.
9 people are dead, six are missing. Over 200 have been injured and 9 thousand homes have been flattened.
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I’m reliably told that the most accurate forecast, statistically speaking, is “The weather tomorrow will be much as it was today”.
:o)
LoL. Not quite true in Canada eh?
But if there is a tomorrow, there will be weather.
A saying here in Canuckland is that is you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes, it will change.:^)
What does the almanac say? I’m curious to see if the predictions were better than the computer produced forecast.
They were off too.
Here you go.
http://www.almanac.com/weather/weather.canada.php
They are probably a bit more accurate about winter - or we believe they are more accurate about winter - for we tend to think winter is colder than it is.:^)
Bene there is something wrong with weather here too. For Real… I watch the birds every year, and this year the swallows that usually build twice a summer before leaving, only built one nest and had fewer little ones. They are all gone already except for a few yellow belly barn swallows.(they build mud houses) The white belly ones that I build houses for are long gone. I have no Idea what it means, but them birds know. Also the humming birds were quick to move on also. After this winter, maybe I’ll figure it out.