Renegade weatherman forecast today's storm weeks ago

Piers Corbyn's renegade weather outfit has comprehensively trumped the taxpayer funded Met Office. Back in August, Corbyn's WeatherAction forecast storms for 17-19 November. Or more accurately, WA made this prediction, upgrading it to 85 per cent accuracy:

N Sea Storm Surge Stormy with heavy rain - snow & blizzards in Scot & N/E later. N Sea storm & coastal flood warnings East Anglia & Holland 18-19/20th enhanced by new moon 16/17th (Red oval = danger sea level rise) S Ireland & S/W less wet & windy.

Severe gales with gusts from 75 to 100mph were also forecast. Now the Mystic Met has finally caught up and upgraded its yellow alert to orange earlier this week - and now suggests half the monthly rainfall for November will fall tonight.

Corbyn still says the flooding may not occur in East Anglia and the Netherlands if the Low "plunging South in South Sweden" - the motion required to produce a storm surge - is too far to the East.

The basis of this was a Red "SWIP" or "Solar Weather Impact Period" - a strong burst of solar particle and electromagnetic activity. He won't publish his methodology. Last month Corbyn said the moon has a small but important role in modulating the field, depending on its position (it needs to be behind the earth, apparently).

So far Corbyn has predicted November with spooky accuracy, bar one slight glitch. The glitch was Saturday's dramatic winds, which led him to suggest that the 17-19 storms we're experiencing had come early. But Sunday saw the weather revert to his forecast of dry and bright weather.

Any mention of Corbyn usually provokes hostile ad hominem emails - which is interesting. No doubt it's purely coincidence that The Met Office operates its own commercial division, set up in 1999. ®

Bootnote

Our interest is piqued enough to make us want to examine the forecasts in detail - a "Piers Review", if you like. But what's a sensible way of measuring the accuracy of a long-range forecast? If you predict an extreme weather event but are on a day out - how should that rank? How should missing an extreme event rank? Suggestions in an email please.