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Ofcom finds public think of weather as important news
epm-84
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/28019354
Maybe ITV should take note, considering they give 40 second slots for national forecasts and shorten what is usually their longer forecast (after the 6.30 news) when there's live sport on later to allow an extra couple of ads to be squeezed in.
Maybe ITV should take note, considering they give 40 second slots for national forecasts and shorten what is usually their longer forecast (after the 6.30 news) when there's live sport on later to allow an extra couple of ads to be squeezed in.
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Very true. People want to know about things that will affect them, directly. Hence traffic & travel news and the weather forecast are the two most relevant news items in any broadcast.
You will find weather forecasts have improved over the last 20 or 30 years.
The weather forecasts or now 80%/90% right.
I follow the weather forecasts as its one of my interests.
Darren
Rubbish, if you listen to a proper forecast then they are usually very accurate now. With claims like that above you often find someone has listened to a 15 second summary for the whole UK.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who/accuracy/forecasts
On what timescale? e.g. I could believe a 24 hour forecast is 80/90% right, but I'd find it night on impossible to believe a five day forecast would be 80/90% right.
A forecast 2 or 3 days ahead can be 80%/90% right. Past that then I would sort of agree with you.
Darren
Here the forecasts are generally accurate which includes the seven day forecast. Anything over seven days I have found can't be trusted. The only thing that is touch and go is incorrect estimates for snowfall. When the snowfall estimate from a week ago is wrong it gets peoples hopes up, especially kids who hope school will be closed, and then a lot of people complain.
What does bother me is that on the day of the snow local stations feel the need to start their morning newscasts at 4:00 AM (otherwise they normally start at 4:30 or 5:00). A few stations even started their broadcast at 3:00 AM multiple times this year, which is well before school districts even announce classes have been cancelled for the day. The other thing that irritates me about snow coverage is when a station feels the need to preempt regular or national programming when there's less than six inches on the ground. Please just run your school and business closings at the bottom of the screen like you always do. I will understand network preemptions if there is a blizzard warning.
Many of you probably have seen the screenshot where a television station in Atlanta, Georgia had 25 people on screen for team coverage of a snow storm that only produced two inches of snow. Now realize that the south does not get snow often (Atlanta only gets 3 inches on average a year) and they do not handle it well as was evident when thousands were stranded on the highway for 24 hours. You do not need 25 people to say its snowing or it hasn't snowed yet - people can look outside their own window. I am also surprised that people didn't realize that several of the supposed live shots shown on that screen show three reports in the dark of night when it is 4PM. No television station or even networks have the ability to show more than 10 people to be simultaneously on screen at once.
The only severe weather coverage that I understand and accept taking over the newscast and preempting most of the television schedule are blizzards, tornados, hurricanes and widespread flooding - you know the type of weather that risks a persons life and home. I will also understand coverage of severe thunderstorms because they can lead to tornados. Finally I do not see the need of a television station reporting that the low lying road by the creek that always floods flooded when it's been raining all day.
To take an example that I know a fair amount about (having monitored and analysed it for 18 months), let's take the BBC website 5-day forecast.
This gives a forecast for the day it's published (which counts as 1 "day") and the subsequent 4 days. While they specify the forecast for reasonably small geographic areas, the forecast is merely a soundbite like "sunny intervals" or "showers". However that makes it easy to analyse ;-)
In this particular case I took the forecast at the same time every morning. I didn't check for updates at any other times and considered any change to a forecast as a sign that one of them: either the "before" or "after" had been wrong. So on that basis, we can say that a forecast is only correct if the prediction made for "tomorrow" is not changed when "tomorrow" arrives. if it does change, then as a 2-day forecast it's useless, as it has been altered. If you were relying on it to forecast tomorrow's weather and when the day arrives, the forecast is different - what's the point of that? So if the forecast for tomorrow was "sunny" and next morning when you look at the forecast it's been changed to "cloudy", then it's reasonable to say that yesterday, the forecast for "today" was incorrect.
As it turns out, that forecast, for my small area of inland southern England, got the next day's forecast right about 50% of the time (i.e. it wasn't changed between the 2 days). The day after that was 25% and it got worse over the next 2 days of the 5 day forecast. The accuracy also dropped during the winter (mainly due to inability to forecast rain or snow correctly: precipitation? yes - but what sort?) To the point where the 5 day forecast was actually "right" about 1 day per month (and over the time I was analysing it, it was wrong EVERY DAY from November through to March). Given that over a month the forecast would contain about 10 different forecasts: sunny, light showers, grey cloud etc. as a 5 day forecast it was actually worse than random chance and much, much worse than just saying "sunny intervals" or "cloudy" for every day, with no analysis at all.
I really don't know why they bother as most of the presenters seem more intent on trying to make you feel better by putting a spin on the forecast. A map with an overview would suffice and if you really want to see the details press the text button.
I'll be sat in front of that!
Localised thunder showers in unstable air are by their very nature extremely hard to predict. I bet the forecast that day did mention the potential for showery activity in a general way.
Yes! I check the BBC Weather page several times a day (I live in Manchester, go figure) and it is beyond a joke. I don't know why they bother doing an hour-by-hour forecast if they can't get it remotely correct.
e.g. last night I checked it at about 10pm to see what it was going to be like today. It said it would be cloudy all day except rainining at 5pm. This morning they changed that to raining pretty much the whole day. Yet it hasn't rained at all so far. Yesterday's forecast for today was more accurate than today's!! What a joke. I realise weather forecasting cannot be an exact science but what is the point of doing such detailed forecasts if they are constantly completely wrong? I'd rather they just said there would be a 50% chance of rain (i.e. we don't know)
Have you ever noticed that the 5 days on the "Further ahead" page often tend to be cloud with sun and rain at the same time icon? Like they can't even be bothered to make a forecast? So why do a 10 day forecast at all? >:(