Faith-based forecasts

Today I took a walk to Whitechapel during my lunch break. The headline of The World's Greatest Newspaper caught my eye. The article raised the prospect of millions being unable to travel home during the holidays and quoted "Piers Corbyn, director of Weather Action long-range forecasters":

We are going to see two main waves of storms, with three serious bursts in total. They will all be worse than last weekend, but we will see a steady deterioration. By the end of the month things are going to be really bad.

That caught my attention, since we're supposed to fly home to Colorado on December 30. The article quoted Corbyn saying that three storms would take place between the 13th-15th, 18th-20th and 27th-29th of December. That level of detail up to three weeks from now sounded, well, impossible, since a 2004 News Focus by Dick Kerr in Science cited Anthony Hollingsworth at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts as stating that in its nearly 25-year history, work on medium-range forecasting by computer models has extended the length of high-quality forecasts from about 2 days to about 4 days. "I hope we'll see useful 10-day forecasts by the end of this decade, in the winter at least," said Hollingsworth.

However, when I get back to my office, I read about the tornado in London. Aha - maybe that Corbyn guy is on to something! At home tonight I looked up the Daily Express article, which went on to say

Mr Corbyn said the new storms were being caused by unusual activity on the Sun, which he said influences the Earth’s weather patterns. He explained: “We are seeing extra magnetic activity from the Sun and extra particles in the solar wind.

“The strength of the Earth’s magnetic connection with the Sun determines our weather to a large extent, so we will see solar storms mirrored here on Earth.”

Oh, right, I remembered. It's this guy! More power to him if he can invent a better mouse trap, but I think I'll take my chances with my eyes being all aglow for Christmas on British Airways.