WEATHER FORECASTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22867, 10 February 1949, Page 4

WEATHER FORECASTS

Sir, —A year ago it occurred to me that it would be of interest to check the accuracy of the forecasts as printed in the Herald. Accordingly day by day for a twelve-month I cut out the forecasts and noted on them their accuracy under the headings of Correct, Inaccurate. Wrong. I append hereto the results from which you will see that three-fourths were correct. It will be noticed that the sum of the days of each month is incomplete. This is due to the Herald not being published on Sundays and certain holidays. Under the heading, “Isaccurate,” I have included forecasts such as the following: “Fair with scattered showers on the ranges,” and if one or two of these light showers reached town and did not otherwise, affect a sunny day it would obviously

have been unjust to say that the forecast was wrong. Little attention has been paid to the diregtion of the wind since it would have been misleading to mark the forecast wrong because the wind blew from the N.W. instead of S.W.

Feb. (1948) 21, 2,3; March 16, 2,7; April 19, 0,7; May 15, 1,0; June 14, 2, 10; July 20, 1,6; August 25, 0,1; September 18, 1,6; October 23, 2,2; November 21, 1,3; December 23, 0, 3 (1949), January 17, 4, 4. Totals: Correct 232, inaccurate 16, wrong 62—310 days. (Since my observations did not commence until February 7, 1948, the six days from February, 1949, have been added to it.)

JOHN FRASER. [The forecasts published in the Herald are supplied by the Government Meteorological Office, Wellington, who, we are informed, state that the weather in the Gisborne district is difficult to forecast.—Ed.j