Subject: Re: Canadian Weather Service (was Western Sandpiper workshop)
Date: Nov 10 13:09:01 1995
From: Don Baccus - donb at Rational.COM
Stuart;
>The fundamental problem with such glamour science is the lack of field observations to work with. I suppose compared to motivating people consistently to
>gather data on arrival and departure times for migrating shorebirds hussling for some time of a supercomputer or two would be a snap :-)
Hey, ya 'ole keyboard hound, lose your <cr> or <nl> key? :)
This particular "glamour science" does get a lot of field data. In fact,
in my last visit to Tokeland Marina I recovered a radiosonde that had
come to earth - well, bay - right in front of the little store.
I sent it back to NOAA's "Radiosonde Reconditioning Facility", free
of charge, ala the instructions. I was attempted to readress it to
"H Curl" at NOAA, instead - the battery really stunk after its
salt-water bath :)
OK, back to topic - there have been radar studies done in the Gulf
of Mexico mapping raptor migration. Maybe songbirds, too. Done
in cooperation with the military due to an insider who has a strong
interest in bird migration, as I recall. I'm certain the people
looking at the data have correlated them with weather information,
though not the weather prediction models I'd guess.
I keep seeing statements about the reliability of modern models
in forecasting weather up to five days now - am I the only person
who believes that they toss out PNW forecasts when they compile
statistics on how accurate these forecasts are?
>My brother works for the UK weather service. Perhaps I could talk him into
>stealing some time on "The Cray Twins" :-)
My understanding is that weather forecasting in the UK is in the
same range of difficulty as that in Oregon, for similar reasons
(nearby ocean, lots of variability in the pace of fronts and
when and where they make landfall).
Is he sane?
- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>