Solar Influences on Our Weather...

Martin North

Martin North

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We (in the UK) are currently under a weatherwatch for a major storm of almost unheard of strength. The watch has been placed by a weather group calling themselves Weather Action. The below forecast is for the Netherlands because I cannot post the UK one as the public forecast is not online atm.

http://www.lowefo.com/index.php

http://www.lowefo.com/forecast.php?s=Netherlands

The controversial thing here is the forecast method...the Solar Weather Technique. Little is know about it and the 'chief forecaster' a guy called Piers Corbyn lets us know little about it either. He produces LRFs based on this 'method'.

I was just wondering if anyone else had heard of this Solar Weather Technique of forecasting.

I can tell you that though this forecast went public through newspapers et al...and we continue to sit within the 'window of doom' there are no signs of the alleged 130 mph storm....and it is cold and frosty here.
 
I have never heard of the Solar Weather Technique, and i´ve been a "serious amateur astronomer" for 5 years.
The the forecast said the same for Finland hurricane class storm with gusts up to 40-60 m/s.
I found this info about the Solar Weather Technique
The ‘Solar Weather Technique’ is a procedure using predictable links between solar activity and weather.
We have studied hundreds of years of weather activity and corresponding solar activity such as solar flares and sunspots and have made our calculations. We attribute confidence levels to our forecasts and when these are high, as they often are for extreme events such as major storms, we are accurate over 85% of the time.
Click to expand...
Yeah I don´t know what to say, yes the sun affects the weather but we are at Solar minimum right now. So if this storm is supposed to happen because of the sun I would be very calm. NOAA says solar activity is expected to be very low. There hasn´t been any sunspots to speak of in a long time and I check spaceweather every day :)

Anna
 
It is expecting a hurricane to Estonia for these days as well... Well... my house is still in its usual zip code... Skies are partly clear and there is no sign of the wind... No thanks, if I want weather forecasts, I will just check EMHI.
 
My difficulty with this is...what exactly is the 'Solar Weather Technique'?

The site (and Mr. Corbyn) is not forthcoming with an explanation of it's methods.

If you go to the Solar Weather Technique page it's under construction....and I've never seen anything there yet.

http://www.weatheraction.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7&Itemid=27

However...if you read the front page, you'll find it mentions...'predictable aspects of solar activity, particle and magnetic effects from the Sun as the basis for forecasting weather'.

http://www.weatheraction.com/
 
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I think Piers subscribes to the increased solar activity = increase Atlantic zonality school of thought.

His entire UK forecast for Nov was for a mild, often wet and windy, zonal month - frequent storms crossing the UK from the west or SW, with a couple of these - included the one expected any day now - expected to be particularly damaging.

As it happens, a meridional pattern has dominate the north, with strong Atlantic blocking. Completely different to what was predicted by Piers.

However, I think I'm right in saying that the sun has been unusual quiet of late? In which case, it might be argued that Piers based his forecast on the expectation of increased solar activity and when this failed to materialise, his forecast was doomed to failure ....

I've tried to engage his supporters on this idea but with little luck so far.

Of course, Piers and his supporters do themselves no favours by constantly trying to reinterpret his forecast to match with actual events. They are currently trying to justify the forecast for a mild, damaging storm, with tropical remnants, crossing the UK from the WSW by saying that the same storm has instead turned into a cold northerly with widespread sharp frosts ......

Why not just admit that on this occasion they were wrong?
 
There have been gusts up to 67mph today, from what I gather, but over the Scottish Highlands which is a normal occurence at this time of year.
http://www.xcweather.co.uk/

Certainly nothing like the 130mph in the original forecast. Definetely not a superstorm. These kind of forecasts do more for headline grabbing in certain tabloid newspapers than actually helping the public which I assume they are designed to protect.
 
Does anyone here know (cause I've never heard of it) of any meteorological organisations who officially use the term 'Superstorm'?

It has been claimed that this term is officially in use in America. I refer in this instance to the use of the term 'Superstorm' in the forecast above.
 
Anna Lindstrom said:
Yeah I don´t know what to say, yes the sun affects the weather but we are at Solar minimum right now. So if this storm is supposed to happen because of the sun I would be very calm. NOAA says solar activity is expected to be very low. There hasn´t been any sunspots to speak of in a long time and I check spaceweather every day :)

Anna
Click to expand...

Anna...I'm told that activity from CME`s can be far greater than that from sunspots. Is this true...?

I'm having it alluded that CME's can directly affect storm (Atlantic Storm) formation.

Personally I think it is nonsense. Deep Atlantic depressions are common-place at this time of year for us. The way this guy is going on...every year when we get Atlantic Storms (Autumn naturally) it's getting blamed on a bout of CME's!
 
Well the forecaster's methods appeared to have let him down. On looking out of my window this morning everything looks kind of normal, trees still standing and fluttering in a slight breeze. Nothing happened. If success is claimed with this forecast at any time soon I would love to hear what criteria was used to claim it!
As Martin says, Atlantic depressions are normal for the UK at this time of year. In fact its been a bit quiet of late due to lack of zonality.
 
Hi Martin

Yes a cme has way more "activity" than a suspot.
I had to do some googling on this it´s not the easiest thing to explain but this is what i found.

A sunspot is a region on the sun´s surface that is marked by a lower temperature than its surroundings and has intense magnetic activity .
Sunspots are often related to intense magnetic activity like coronal loops and reconnection.
Sunspots themselves produce only minor effects on solar emissions, the magnetic activity that accompanies the sunspots can produce dramatic changes in the ultraviolet and soft x-ray emission levels. These changes over the solar cycle have important consequences for the Earth's upper atmosphere.
Most solar flares and coronal mass ejections originate in magnetically active regions around sunspot groupings.
CMEs can occur at any time during the solar cycle, but their occurrence reate increases with increasing solar activity and peaks aroud solar maximum.
I hope you got something out of this. :)

CME video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnqubAGgx2k&feature=related
On April 15, 2001 sunspot 9415 unleashed one of the most powerful explosions ever recorded in our solar system an X14-class solar flare
 
Cheers Anna. I realise that CME's are very violent ejections of matter...I was pretty comfortable with that.

Badly worded I think I could have made my point better. I really meant the relationship between CME's and weather cycles...are they such violent ejections that they can have sudden effects. Personally I doubt it.

We have CME's that are not even headed in this direction which are being blamed for storm activity. Now the only thing I can see coming off from CME's (if one hits us) is increased aurora activity and some damaged electronics technology. I've never noticed storms increase.

The main reason I can say this imo is because I actually go out to spot Aurora activity when CME remnants pass this way. I can honestly say there were no weather anomalies that I have ever been able to see.

But hang on a minute...there'll be a weather event somewhere on the planet that could be blamed on one at that time. But when you really think about it...there are weather events somewhere on the planet every day...
 
No i have never heard that cmes could be blamed on the weather only loss of power and that it can disturb electronics.
My teeth often ache when there are auroras :rolleyes: maybe it´s just in my head..
 
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