Sunday, August 30, 2009

UK Met Office Employs Hindsight to Claim Prediction Perfection.

This technique of rewriting information is not just restricted to the press, the UK Met Office was caught out rewriting their own forecasts after the prediction had passed.

In a previous post I discussed the way that the media hypes stories that support the theory of anthropogenic global warming. They will take singular, odd weather events and purport that they prove that catastrophic warming is happening. Similar events, which lean the other way, are immediately dismissed and the Media reminds everyone that singular events don't prove anything. It's the double standard that bugs me.

But if you want pure chutzpah you have go to England's Met Office. I saw a mention of these posts at Watts Up With That” but I found this so astounding I had to verify each post myself.




Let's start with their weather forecast from September, 2008. The Met "forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average.” (seen above).


Of course, as we reported, this winter in England was particularly bitter. So what did the Met say later about their earlier forecast? On December 12 the Met admits "that the UK has had the coldest start to winter in over 30 years." No one will fault them for not getting it right. But what I found astounding was that this statement claimed: "The Met Office seasonal forecast predicted the cold start to the winter season with milder conditions expected during January and February..” (As above)

They send out a press statement claiming the winter will be mild and when they get it wrong they send out another press statement claiming they predicted it would be unusually cold. In the same statement they told everyone that January and February, however, would be "milder" .


Unfortunately the beginning of January has remained quite cold and didn't turn mild as they forecast. But never fear. The Met Office released another press statement and ended it slapping themselves on the back. "The Met Office correctly forecast the spell of cold weather and kept the public informed via our various forecasts." (As seen above)


It is amazing how accurate their forecasts have become since they started doing them using the hindsight technique.

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