New Zealand Local Weather Forum
Archive Library => 2012 => Archives => Forecasts & Warnings 2012 => Topic started by: Te Puke Weather on May 07, 2012, 07:51:33 AM
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A warning on those warnings
If the public are to understand severe weather events better, they're going to need more education as well as some fine-tuning of forecasters' weather warnings.
The Government, through your taxes, funds MetService to provide weather warnings, watches and thunderstorm warnings, watches and outlooks.
Last Sunday and Monday, a number of warnings were in place, predicting winds of up to 130km/h. Some areas, such as Wellington, had those winds - but not everyone did. This led to a number of complaints to WeatherWatch.co.nz about why the warnings were issued in the first place.
Read on from Weatherwatch (http://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/content/a-warning-those-warnings)
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Weather watch makes some interesting points in this article.
Bumping up for those who have not read it.
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its a fickle thing the NWer in Canterbury
and hard to predict for CHCH city itself
there are places inland that will get it more readily
similar for eastern NI
there are places that get the NW wind much stronger than other places
and the people who live there will know, i.e they will fine tune the forecast with their local knowledge
all WW is trying to do lately is create a them versus us
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fore·cast (fôrkst, fr-)
v. fore·cast or fore·cast·ed, fore·cast·ing, fore·casts
v.tr.
1. To estimate or calculate in advance, especially to predict (weather conditions) by analysis of meteorological data
Why is it that society expects to have their collective hand held in all situations. A forecast or a warning is a guestimate using information and experience about what might happen, not what will happen.
Forecasters now issue warnings in some situations where in the past they might not have, the reason being that they have been lambasted in the past for not issuing strong enough warnings when the conditions have unexpectedly deteriorated.
Now they get lambasted when conditions are not as bad as predicted. For goodness sakes people, have a look out the window or better yet, get off your fat rear ends and go for a walk outside, turning your brain on as you exit the house. A number of things will happen as a result - you will get some fresh air and some exercise, this in turn helps your brain to work so you are able to notice what the conditions are doing for yourself, you will then get some idea for yourself as to what the weather might do.
Rant over.
I know I am preaching to the converted here but the constant societal blaming everyone else for everything sometimes gets to me.
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I agree with the above. Note that now there are competing forecasters, however, some forums/weather websites encourage their users or readers to criticise the opposition (or passively permit it), especially if the target is MetService.