Checking heavy rain and snow
Planned · 15 November 2026
The question. Can heavy rain and snow be verified and calibrated as the other four kinds of weather are, using rain gauges and snow observations instead of airport reports?
Why
Airports report fog, temperature, wind and thunder, but not how much rain fell or how deep the snow is. So heavy rain and snow are the two kinds of weather on the site that have never been checked against what happened.
Candidate sources
- Rain: the Environment Agency, SEPA and Natural Resources Wales gauge networks (open data, 15-minute totals), and Met Éireann's daily stations.
- Rain and snow: the Met Office MIDAS archive (daily rainfall, snow depth and "snow lying" observations).
How it will be judged (fixed before running)
As for the other kinds of weather: raw member share against calibrated chance, cross-validated BSS and reliability, by step and lead; calibration adopted only where it improves BSS at both day 0 and day 3.