Thats spot on Steve. They have less idea the more money we throw at them.
Seems they have to use the models.... forget about real observations, just models.
They must never look out the window, never look at any data themselves, just feed it into the computers and stand back and have a tea break.
The fellows in the second world war did much better with much less.
we have not progressed, nor will we until we redress the reliance on pathetic models, and start doing some seat of the pants predicting from the current data available.
Over here I ask the fisherman about the weather. They look at a isobar map, and get it pretty right most times, and as their livellhood and safety depend on getting it right, they don't seem to use the normal nonsense we other folks get subjected too.
The experts always seem to predict rain that never turns up from the west when they think it should, never predict the easterly rains, which always confound them..... and hedge nearly every day with percentage chance of rain.... If they threw a coin they may get it right half the time I guess.
They get the wind wrong a lot of the time (even direction), and have no idea about overnight lows.
If I had believed them, we would have never dropped below about 6C..... but been having plenty of frosts down to -3C. They fail to understand, that saying 5-7 most days, just does not have any relevance to observed temperatures. Their day temps are just a joke.
Feel for you buddy.
If you look at the isobars, and the radar, use local knowledge, then you will probably out predict them 90% of the time.
....... and they have 150 years of data from here to fill out their local knowledge base to feed the ever hungry models.
It is truly pathetic...... them and economists and football commentators.(footy EXPERTS always say why some side will win, while other experts say why they wont..... expert?
?)
................oztules