There are easy ways to do things and there are hard ways to do things. In modern society, everything is done the hard way. No wonder, therefore, that people become old and decrepit before their time. That’s one of the consequences of always finding the hardest, most cumbersome, difficult, backbreaking, arduous and laborious way of doing things.

Take weather forecasting, for example. Like everything else in life, there is an easy way to forecast the weather and a hard way.


The EASY Way:

The easy way is by DIVINATION. (Oh p-lease, spare me the howls of incredulous laughter --- it only betrays ignorance and stupidity!)

Here’s how divination works for me: if I want a short term forecast I go out the back door and look at the birds. For a long term forecast, well, I have to wait until it arrives. (I’ve already received my long term forecast for next winter.)

Short term weather forecasting is accomplished, as I said, by observing the birds. Here’s a sample:

Flocks of crows means heavy cloud cover probably with heavy rain and wind. Water birds e.g. ducks, oyster catchers, gulls etc, indicate rain. Pigeons indicate clear spells. Flocks of crows interspersed with pigeons flying past means heavy cloud etc, with clear spells in-between. If I hear geese at night, then I can expect low cloud or fog.

Last winter I received a four week forecast from an owl (well, not in person, of course). When I see or hear an owl, this interprets as a short cold snap of one day or so followed by a longer period of milder weather. One night when driving home at dusk, I stopped the car to watch a barn owl hunting along the hedgerow. Instead of flying off the bird flew just ahead of the car, alighting on fence posts every so often. I followed the owl for nearly 10 minutes. I interpreted this as a weather pattern of short cold snaps followed by milder weather --- and that is exactly what happened.

Last winter’s long term forecast was received in September. Reading a number of novels in quick succession, the phrase “late snows” (occurring in each of the novels) jumped out at me. In my part of the world, we did indeed have late snows and a cold spring. My long range weather forecast for the winter before last was also correct.

FAQs:
How do I know which birds to pick out from the mass or which words/phrases in books to pick out from the mass? Intuition. Divination will not work for you unless, among many other things, your intuition is well developed. Too bad that rules out readers of this piece, then, eh?



The HARD Way:

The hard way is by METEOROLOGY.

Obtain a university degree in meteorology, computer science etc, etc --- 3 or 4 years of backbreaking, mind-numbing, tedious SLOG. Get a job at the Met. Office.

Write weather modelling software. Plug in all the data gathered “since records began” and start up the computers --- rooms full of the damn things in a sterile, dust-free environment. Spend hours upon hours upon hours de-bugging and fine-tuning software until results moderately satisfactory. Of course, when software and/or hardware out of date, must be upgraded --- more hours upon hours upon hours of tedious, painstaking, mind-numbing slog.

Send satellites into earth orbit to gather colossal quantities of data.

Litter the planet with little weather stations (or weather balloons or sensors etc, etc). Have some poor sods record daily wind speeds, temperatures, precipitation, hours of sunshine, collate results and return to relevant Met. Office for processing. (And I’ve done that. Talk about mind-numbing!)

All this goes on day after day, month after month, year after year --- this vast weather machine, a gigantic mill, eternally and inexorably grinding and churning and pounding and pulverising the increasing and gargantuan quantities of data that feed it, tended lovingly by its slaves, the meteorologists, whose period of servitude results in nothing more than their accelerated decrepitude.

Geez – modern meteorology is so PRIMITIVE!!!!!

What do you think?


PS: “For mash get Smash!” I’m the aliens, you’re the earthlings, and I’m splitting my sides laughing at your primitive methods.

Can you provide a forecast for the south of England tomorrow please?

I need cloudbase, thermal strengths, cumulus potential, wind strength and direction (at ground level and at 2000ft altitude), all at hourly intervals for each square on a 2km grid. Thanks in anticipation.

Obvious is obvious.

I could use an accurate forecast of this year's hurricane activity in the Gulf. Thank you.

Paul wrote:Can you provide a forecast for the south of England tomorrow please?

I need cloudbase, thermal strengths, cumulus potential, wind strength and direction (at ground level and at 2000ft altitude), all at hourly intervals for each square on a 2km grid. Thanks in anticipation.

Too specific. You need to ask questions with a 50/50 answer which he has a chance of getting right. Will it be wet or dry? Rainy or sunny? That sort of thing so he can say, "I told you" when he gets it right and "I must've read the sign wrong" when he's wrong (never that the sign is actually wrong).

Well, every day, rain or shine, I see flocks of crows, flocks of seabirds (gulls, pelicans, herons, egrets, flamingos, roseate spoonbills, wood and mallard ducks, white and Canada geese and a few others), raptors (red shouldered hawk, osprey, swallow-tailed kite and the occasional bald eagle), wood pigeons, ring necked doves, Quaker parrots and innumerable smaller birds (woodpecker, mockingbird, cardinal, jays, etc). I hear both ducks and geese most nights, and they're often floating about in the pool in the morning. I saw quite a few pigeons yesterday, and today tropical storm Andrea dumped about 5 inches of rain on us with 45 mph winds. Not a dry patch to be found, nor a single patch of blue sky.

OTOH, the meteorologists told us three days ago that we'd be hit with Andrea, predicted between 3 and 5 inches of rain for our area, told us the worst would be over by about 2 PM (appears to be, but you never know), warned that there was a strong possibility of tornados, particularly more inland (had 2, about 35 miles inland). They predicted no storm surge and tides only slightly above average. My observations of Sarasota Bay this morning confirmed that.

So the only explanations I can think of is a) confirmation bias on your part or b) birds act differently here.

pantodragon wrote:Weather forecasting for dummies

You said it

All that said, animal behavior can provide clues to impending weather. For example, yesterday evening there were large groups of various seabirds close to shore, resting on the water rather than flying and fishing, which is their usual behavior. Why? Low pressure from the approaching storm front, freshening wind and extreme humidity. Flying is harder, and the bay is choppy, making it harder to see fish from the air. The spoonbills were feeding, though. Why? They're filter feeding waders, they don't need to fly or see fish to eat. When the dogs go hide in the bedroom it often means a thunderstorm is coming. Why? Their hearing is more acute than ours, they can hear (or perhaps feel) the distant thunder long before I can.

This posting is a joke, right?

laklak wrote:Well, every day, rain or shine, I see flocks of crows, flocks of seabirds (gulls, pelicans, herons, egrets, flamingos, roseate spoonbills, wood and mallard ducks, white and Canada geese and a few others), raptors (red shouldered hawk, osprey, swallow-tailed kite and the occasional bald eagle), wood pigeons, ring necked doves, Quaker parrots and innumerable smaller birds (woodpecker, mockingbird, cardinal, jays, etc). I hear both ducks and geese most nights, and they're often floating about in the pool in the morning. I saw quite a few pigeons yesterday, and today tropical storm Andrea dumped about 5 inches of rain on us with 45 mph winds. Not a dry patch to be found, nor a single patch of blue sky.

.

Divination doesn't work like that. Nor can you do it. I refer you to my piece The Mechanism Behind Divination.

pantodragon wrote:

laklak wrote:Well, every day, rain or shine, I see flocks of crows, flocks of seabirds (gulls, pelicans, herons, egrets, flamingos, roseate spoonbills, wood and mallard ducks, white and Canada geese and a few others), raptors (red shouldered hawk, osprey, swallow-tailed kite and the occasional bald eagle), wood pigeons, ring necked doves, Quaker parrots and innumerable smaller birds (woodpecker, mockingbird, cardinal, jays, etc). I hear both ducks and geese most nights, and they're often floating about in the pool in the morning. I saw quite a few pigeons yesterday, and today tropical storm Andrea dumped about 5 inches of rain on us with 45 mph winds. Not a dry patch to be found, nor a single patch of blue sky.

.

Divination doesn't work like that. Nor can you do it. I refer you to my piece The Mechanism Behind Divination.

Fixed.