Thursday, March 27, 2008
Miserable Pessimists at BBC Weather?
A few years back, the typical TV weather forecast involved dividing the country up into three or four zones, and describing the weather for each zone.
Where I live - in the Derbyshire Dales - always seemed to be on the join between two completely different forecasts.
So the BBC's web-based forecasts should have been brilliant for us. And often they are. But today I hit a contrast that I cannot explain - and given that the BBC's complaints system doesn't allow uploading of images, I am using this page to illustrate the problem.
At 0651 on Thursday 27th March 2008, this is what the five-day forecast for Derby looked like this:
Thursday looks pretty dreadful, so give up on the plans for a day's walking.
But hang on, let's just check the 24-hour forecast - displayed at exactly the same time - for Derby:
Now, that looks better. In fact, that looks completely different.
I acknowledge that summarising can be difficult (do you show the average, best or worst of a very variable day?) - but in this case, the options would be to show "cloudy" or "sunny intervals".
Would any reasonable person summarise this as "Heavy Showers"?
I am asking BBC weather to comment, and will copy their response here.
Where I live - in the Derbyshire Dales - always seemed to be on the join between two completely different forecasts.
So the BBC's web-based forecasts should have been brilliant for us. And often they are. But today I hit a contrast that I cannot explain - and given that the BBC's complaints system doesn't allow uploading of images, I am using this page to illustrate the problem.
At 0651 on Thursday 27th March 2008, this is what the five-day forecast for Derby looked like this:
Thursday looks pretty dreadful, so give up on the plans for a day's walking.
But hang on, let's just check the 24-hour forecast - displayed at exactly the same time - for Derby:
Now, that looks better. In fact, that looks completely different.I acknowledge that summarising can be difficult (do you show the average, best or worst of a very variable day?) - but in this case, the options would be to show "cloudy" or "sunny intervals".
Would any reasonable person summarise this as "Heavy Showers"?
I am asking BBC weather to comment, and will copy their response here.
