GDay CJ. I'm in Loosenoosa on holidays. I've just been out around Birdsvile. Might head towards Innaminka tomorrow I reckon!

I'm in practice for an early retirement! (:>)

Sunny days and clear starry nights on the Granite Belt eh? Sounds good.

So why do you reckon the weather forecast, presumably for all of southeast Queensland, has been so off-track lately?

It is usually reasonably good at home in Townsville, and I recall it being very reliable in Perth when I lived there.

ludwig, you are not forecasting but watching TV forecast

the BOM site provides great tools for you to see what is developing espec the 4 day isobar maps. So YOU become the forecaster

eg at present you as well as me in FNQ have Mon = strong SE winds, Tue = strong SE winds, Wed = strong SE winds, Thur = strong SE winds.

Get the picture - lol.

To be honest I don't really understand maps of Qld but back in surfing and skiing days I was quite expert on best times for surf and snow down there in NSW, but now I just need to look over top of PC to see that no self respecting fish would be in that surf, nor am I about to brave the wind to find out.

as they say for this time of year, Qld windy one day, blustery the next

The difficulty of accurate prediction on a daily basis has nothing to do with lack of money, or models, or being bureaucrats. It's inherent in the nature of variability. Long term patterns are easy: you don't need to be a trained meteorologist to know that winter is cooler than summer. But within winter, or summer, each day is different - some are hot some cold some wet etc. The fluctuations are smaller but faster and specific predictions are much harder. It also depends on where you live and how many factors influence the local climate. I used to live in Sydney, affected by westerly, southerly and coastal systems (I'm guessing coastal Noosa will be similar); now living inland it's much simpler - just look at the western horizon - that'll be tomorrow's weather. So yes, even though it seems counter-intuitive, it's very much easier to model and predict long-term climate than short-term weather. The difficulty of short-term weather prediction is NOT a valid reason for climate change denial.

This is quite a revelation to me Ludwig.

>>Today was a lovely day. But the forecast last night was for anything but.<<

The first time I went to Noosa, every evening the weather forecast was the same: "tomorrow, early showers, clearing".

Every morning, the weather forecast said "today, early showers, clearing".

It rained. For five days. Non-stop.

I came away utterly convinced that the forecasting was in the hands of the Tourist Bureau, rather than meteorologists, and that they were trying desperately to keep people in Noosa to keep the economy running.

Their plan succeeded, for five days. It was raining when I arrived. It was raining when I left. But I spent five days there, in the hope that the sun might shine. Tomorrow.

If you hadn't posted, I would have assumed that it is raining still.

Hi beach bum, I envy you!
"How can the weather bureau get it so wrong so often?"

I suppose that is because nothing is as changeable and chaotic as the weather.
And because it's hard to predict the mood of Thor.

I wonder if all weather bureaus have some kind of performance index in where they keep records of reliability of their predictions.

Stern,
Weather forecast is nothing like climate predictions.
Weather, because it's chaotic, is much harder to predict than climate.
With climate prediction, scientists take a long term view and average out the weather over a long period of time. And with that info, they can make models that successfully predict climate.

The trouble with most things, like weather forcasting is that the meteorologists learnt their trade from an academic, who learnt theirs from another before that.

If only these people would get out & talk to some people who really know, we would all be a lot better off.

In the islands, if you want to know what the weather will be doing tomorrow, ask the local, paddling past in his canoe. He has no radio, so he has no bad forcast. He will however, look at the wind direction & strength, & the colour of any clouds, & give you a 90+% correct forcast.

In the Whitsundays I had to make a decision, every day, before 6.30 AM, weather [Ha Ha] to send a boat load of tourists out to the reef. If I got it wrong, either way I would have a boat load of very sick tourists, or a town full of unhapy ticket selling agents, giving refunds.

Our weather Bureau was no use at all. The latest wheather map could help a bit, but they were no where as good in the 70s as they are now.

However I was luck enough to get to know a 78 year old ex park ranger, who'd spent his life in the islands, when they had to row a boat between the islands. To get to 70+ they had to understand the weather.

This bloke taught me how to read the sky, wind direction, & strength, at 5.00 AM to get a 95+% accurate forcast for the rest of the day, & a damn sight better than met bureau one for tomorrow.

This bloke had been to school for 2 years, but luckily, never to uni. Our academics should have been out scouring the country for these old people, with all this wisdom, who could teach them more in an afternoon then they had learnt in a lifetime.

Most of these people are now gone, & sadly most of the similar indigenous knowledge is also gone.