NOAA issued its forecast for this winter in November 2013. They said to expect warmer than normal temps over much of CONUS. The venerable Farmer’s Almanac warned of a chilly winter. The FA crystal ball returned an accurate prediction while that of NOAA is in the shop for repair.
Over in the UK their meteorological agency, The MET, forecast a dry winter. The UK has been under water with the worst floods since 1929-30. Apparently, the government Environment Agency was warned that a disaster loomed if heavy rains were received and did nothing about it. The reduction of Arctic sea ice was blamed for the anticipated drier, colder winters. In 2011 UK households were warned about water restrictions due to the anticipated drought. Does the MET have a warming bias in its forecasting model? Or were the floods deliberately allowed to happen?
Moral of the story: just because you have a super expensive supercomputer doesn’t mean the results coming out will be useful to people. The forecast will reflect the value of the theory embedded in the computer code. In the case of NOAA and the MET much reprogramming seems warranted. Mother Nature has issued a recall on their crystal ball.
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