09 September 2008

Weather redux

I've been posted a nice link about the validity of self-serving email writer Ken Ring's weather predictions. My favourite comment is:

Mr Ring's weather predictions fail. When and if he is forced to explain his failures he mischievously reinterprets forecasts, suppresses negative forecasts and simply invents forecasts that were never made, all in such a way as to make it appear that his apparent failure was actually a success.


Enjoy!

9 comments:

C. L. DeMedeiros said...

David,

Poitless and absurd

is wonderful

I love that!!!

I'm self-taught too

cheers,

carlos

David Cauchi said...

Cheers Carlos. Here's to nothing!

Anonymous said...

I have been alerted to your blog and would like to respond as I feel I have been misrepresented. Perhaps in the interest of balance, if you are fairminded, you will allow this post. It is not surprising that meteorologists see me as competition, do not like me and make up things that I am supposed to be doing. They might be better employed trying to get the weather right themselves. NZ Metservice said, for instance (NZ Herald, front page) wintry cold would be over by about 10 July, when really it was just beginning. When they say I use an 18+10 method, this is simply incorrect as anyone can verify who has purchased my almanac. I actually use 19 years and 38 years, also astrological astronomy as practised in eastern countries based on the lunar calendar. It is no secret and I teach the method to farmers when I do public talks. I am currently employed by a major Australian TV channel for longrange forecasts. They seem pleased with my work and I do not think they employ frauds. If anyone wants to learn the moon method they can download my free 230-page book "Predicting Weather By The Moon" from my website www.predictweather.com. It is better to be informed of my method rather than just copy what one's competitors say about you. As to my successes or not over 2008, just look on https://www.predictweather.co.nz/assets/articles/article_home.php?id=60
for how my severe weather predictions were matched by what actually happened.
kind regards
Ken Ring

s. said...

Jim Renwick, one of NIWA's senior scientists who "for his own interest (and in his own time) looked at the maps in Ken's almanac for 2005 and compared them with reality"...

"Since I have all the maps for the last 40 years in electronic form, it was easy for me to score his daily weather maps against reality for all of last year. His scores were slightly worse than those obtained by picking maps at random."

"You can see that the Moon forecasts have a median score about 85 (useless). About two thirds of the moon forecasts score over 80, in the "useless" category, and about 1% are in the less than 30 "perfect" category. The random forecasts do about the same - identically in a statistical sense."


...

I enjoyed that a lot.

Anonymous said...

If course he said that. He is biased against anything he has not studied. It's like asking a doctor if he thinks Chinese medicine is better than western medicine. People have to try my forecasts for themselves, not just believe what the metservice suggests about my work.
Ken Ring
www.predictweather.com

s. said...

Ken, I cannot find it within myself to point out the colossal failure of logic within your remarks, so to you I bid good day.

Anonymous said...

What is your logic Stepehen? To believe one biased scientist concerned about his job protection? The Metservice said winter would be over on July 9th. In the Herald frontpage of 30 Sept they said we are in for a cooler summer than normal. On 1 October again Herald front page they said we can expect a warmer summer than average. Just one day later??? Kindly show me what they in fact mean, other than a bob each way. Come on mate, this is your idea of good logic..?
Ken Ring
www.predictweather.com

Anonymous said...

If you go to
https://www.predictweather.co.nz/assets/articles/article_home.php?id=60
you will see that all my forecasts made last year for this year have been correct, there is the Metservice proof. That to me is logic. When the Metservice says winter will be over on july 9th and it wasn't, that is nonlogical because it was incorrect. If you can't tell the difference you had better look up some dictionary meanings. Mr Renwick probably genuinely believes what he is doing. However how he says I calculate my weathermaps is totally incorrect, and can be verified by simply matching the maps in the 2008 or 2009 almanacs to those he says I equated them to. So maybe he is making it up, I wouldn't know unless I was him. However, he has a vested interest in closing me down, because he and the rest of his colleagues see no reason for competition.
Please challenge me on the facts, on what I said last year would happen vs what actually did, or we are not having a rational discussion, only a ranting one at your end.
Ken Ring
www.predictweather.com

Anonymous said...

I find it rather odd that the Metservice is somehow immune from criticism, yet they get things so wildly wrong many times. According to the internet site the strongest wind in Auckland today was a 17mph westerly at 4.30pm with the odd 30mph gust, nothing even approaching 150kph. I think some of the metservice guys might have gotten a bit carried away with their own excitement.
Even in Wellington the Rimutaka hills got up to 160km/h, Cook Strait got up to 115, and the Manukau heads up to 83, but no one lives there so it doesn't really matter, and anyway, those places ALWAYS get strong winds. But it appears I am singled out for extensive analysis even though I do not specialise in anything other than a longrange service. Did I get the wind gusts for around now in this year's almanac? Yes, on p270-271 for Christchurch, on p269 and 271 for Auckland (I admit to being a day out, as I said it would be blustery on Oct 8 on p269), and these predictions were made two years ago.
Ken Ring
www.predictweather.com

visitors since 29 March 2004.