BBC TV and computer weather forecasting.

[Busaholic]

It's never been the same since the demise of Michael Fish, still v much with us by the way.

 

[sprunt]

The Met Office were probably unwilling to provide a 2 week ahead forecast as they know that in the UK it is virtually impossible to accurately predict weather that far in advance.

Is a forecast for 10 days in the future significantly more likely to be accurate than one for 14 days in the future? Given how much the forecasts for shorter periods seem to change from day to day, I'd have guessed not.

 

[Buzby]

Only very rarely have I found this (difference between 10-14) so much happens to the variables in the interim is than unless it is wildly to the contrary, nobody’s going to notice. I stopped paying attention to the BBC and used the Meteosat app instead (which uses the same data set). I can then concentrate on the areas of interest to me, rather than wait for the forecaster reaching my neck of the woods.

 

[dangie]

Not weather forecasting but weather & nature related.
Where we are the trees have really started turning brown and shedding leaves much earlier than normal, or so it appears anyway. Walking through Rugeley Market Square this morning the trees & leaves on the ground were more like November not September. Come the end of the month at this rate they'll be bare.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I tend to use the BBC website that has one-hourly forecast sections in the area of my choice. Maybe it is pot luck but the "lightning flash" icon they use to signify thunderstorms etc has been incorrect on the last seven days that they have shown this icon. I live just a matter of a few miles away from the town of Cheadle in Greater Manchester which is the area they show as the weather town of the area on their coast to coast map.

 

[GusB]

Not weather forecasting but weather & nature related.
Where we are the trees have really started turning brown and shedding leaves much earlier than normal, or so it appears anyway. Walking through Rugeley Market Square this morning the trees & leaves on the ground were more like November not September. Come the end of the month at this rate they'll be bare.

We're into meteorological autumn; trees generally shed their leaves in autumn!

While I haven't kept any records, I can certainly recall wading through piles of leaves in October.

You say that trees have started shedding leaves earlier than normal - I'd suggest that some trees also started growing leaves earlier than normal; the cherry tree in my garden certainly did.

Nature doesn't stick to a fixed timetable!

 

[dangie]

We're into meteorological autumn; trees generally shed their leaves in autumn!

While I haven't kept any records, I can certainly recall wading through piles of leaves in October.

Yes I do know it’s autumn.
I too have waded through leaves in October, but don’t recall doing so in the first week of September.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Yes I do know it’s autumn.

Surely it's not yet Autumn until Sunday 22nd September 2024 when the Autumnal equinox occurs. 'Meteorological autumn' is just something that's done for simplifying record keeping purposes.

 

[duncombec]

I tend to use the BBC website that has one-hourly forecast sections in the area of my choice. Maybe it is pot luck but the "lightning flash" icon they use to signify thunderstorms etc has been incorrect on the last seven days that they have shown this icon. I live just a matter of a few miles away from the town of Cheadle in Greater Manchester which is the area they show as the weather town of the area on their coast to coast map.

"A few miles" is a very long way for weather and climate, especially when it comes to something as "hit and miss" as showers.

I live about a mile away from my parents. One day earlier in the summer, I'd walked up in sunshine, but had to delay by return because of biblical-style rain. When it left off and I started home, I realised that somewhere along the way, it hadn't rained a drop. Not just the dampness had already cleared from the breeze, literally not a drop - there were no puddles and the ground was dry.

Or a couple of weeks ago, when the difference between completely dry and the Monsoon was about four paces. Never have I seen so many people stop in the middle of Exhibition Road (South Kensington) to reach for raincoats to stop them being soaked through (or indeed drivers fumbling for the windscreen wipers so they could actually see the front of the bonnet of their car to move off safely...).

That's before taking into account the forecast being extrapolated from the nearest weather station (in both time and place), and there's a significant chance the weather station isn't in Cheadle. (I'd guess the nearest would be Manchester Airport. I believe the nearest to me, in the Medway Towns, are at East Malling and Faversham, two entire urban areas away in each case).

 

[sprunt]

Surely it's not yet Autumn until Sunday 22nd September 2024 when the Autumnal equinox occurs.

Tell the trees then! I'm certainly not wading through piles of leaves round here yet, but the leaves on all the trees are starting to turn brown, and it pretty much exactly coincided with the start of the month. Quite depressing really, winter's rubbish.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

"A few miles" is a very long way for weather and climate, especially when it comes to something as "hit and miss" as showers.

I live about a mile away from my parents. One day earlier in the summer, I'd walked up in sunshine, but had to delay by return because of biblical-style rain. When it left off and I started home, I realised that somewhere along the way, it hadn't rained a drop. Not just the dampness had already cleared from the breeze, literally not a drop - there were no puddles and the ground was dry.

Or a couple of weeks ago, when the difference between completely dry and the Monsoon was about four paces. Never have I seen so many people stop in the middle of Exhibition Road (South Kensington) to reach for raincoats to stop them being soaked through (or indeed drivers fumbling for the windscreen wipers so they could actually see the front of the bonnet of their car to move off safely...).

I've known instances where it has been raining heavily out one side of the office I work in, and dry on the other side.

That's before taking into account the forecast being extrapolated from the nearest weather station (in both time and place), and there's a significant chance the weather station isn't in Cheadle. (I'd guess the nearest would be Manchester Airport. I believe the nearest to me, in the Medway Towns, are at East Malling and Faversham, two entire urban areas away in each case).

I suspect that for towns without a weather station they take an average of the forecasts for the nearest three weather stations in different directions and weight it for the relative distances from each. The forecast results will be even fuzzier in hilly areas like the Lake District where the sheer of the winds on the Fells can result in extremely localised conditions which vary by the minute.

 

[dangie]

I suspect that for towns without a weather station they take an average of the forecasts for the nearest three weather stations in different directions and weight it for the relative distances from each.

That’s interesting, I always thought they just guessed it

 

[SJL2020]

Not weather forecasting but weather & nature related.
Where we are the trees have really started turning brown and shedding leaves much earlier than normal, or so it appears anyway. Walking through Rugeley Market Square this morning the trees & leaves on the ground were more like November not September. Come the end of the month at this rate they'll be bare.

The trees might be exhibiting signs of stress due to local factors such as pests, disease, pollution, inadequate to nutrients and/or water, etc.

 

[AM9]

Surely it's not yet Autumn until Sunday 22nd September 2024 when the Autumnal equinox occurs. 'Meteorological autumn' is just something that's done for simplifying record keeping purposes.

On that basis, mid summers day is the beginning of summer??, and midwinter's day is the beginning of winter??
Actually, the four seasons defined by meteorologists does fit in quite well, after all those seasons are primarily about weather anyway. Those seasons are centered on the solstices with a 1-2 week delay, which is appropriate in the UK to allow for weather change inertia.

 

[Bevan Price]

It is the BBC Radio 4 weather forecasts that I find most irritating, especially the morning forecasts within the Today programme. Often they allow interviews to overrun, and the weather forecast becomes a rushed, garbled thing, sometimes as little as 30 seconds. (But they still find room for nearly a minute of their "adverts" - a.k.a. "programme trails")

(And yes, I did once suggest to BBC that they should put the forecasts after the "news on the hour" so that we could always get uninterrupted forecasts, but, needless to say, my suggestion was ignored.)

 

[Mcr Warrior]

(And yes, I did once suggest to BBC that they should put the forecasts after the "news on the hour" so that we could always get uninterrupted forecasts, but, needless to say, my suggestion was ignored.)

Doesn't this happen on BBC Radio 5 Live in the morning? News, sport, national weather and finally traffic news.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In the 1970s, a joke circulated the weather forecasting staff at the BBC about what might happen in inclement winter weather if the band leader Victor Sylvester were to talk about the weather.

They were of the opinion that the bandleader would slightly amend his usual saying to..." Snow, snow, thick thick snow"

 

[Magdalia]

It is the BBC Radio 4 weather forecasts that I find most irritating, especially the morning forecasts within the Today programme. Often they allow interviews to overrun, and the weather forecast becomes a rushed, garbled thing, sometimes as little as 30 seconds.

I find this irritating too. But the weather is after the news in the 0530 news briefing, and on Mondays to Fridays there is weather after the opening news on Today at 0600.

 

[dangie]

It's never been the same since the demise of Michael Fish, still v much with us by the way.

There are so many different weather forecast presenters, particularly on the local commercial TV stations, I’m sure most haven’t had any grounding at all on anything meteorological. They’d probably think an Isobar was a bar of chocolate.

At least, from t’internet, BBC’s Carol Kirkwood did once work for the Weather Channel, and when she joined the Beeb received training at the Met Office.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

There are so many different weather forecast presenters

Does anyone remember the one a song was written about...John Kettley.

 

[Buzby]

Does anyone remember the one a song was written about...John Kettley.

I much preferred ‘It’s Raining Men’ from the Weather Girls…. Not heard much of Kettley since he left

 

[Halwynd]

I've found the Met Office have become more reliable in recent weeks. Yesterday their website got my local forecast correct hour by hour.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2024 ==

Does anyone remember the one a song was written about...John Kettley.

John Kettley is a weatherman, and so is Michael Fish!

 

[davews]

But the weather is after the news in the 0530 news briefing, and on Mondays to Fridays there is weather after the opening news on Today at 0600.

In the old days of Today they used to give a full forecast for the country divided into groups of counties. Now they tend to generalise and concentrate on that part of the country with the worst weather. Very often they even forget to mention the South East or if they do it is so brief that I miss it. I usually think (still dozing off at that time of day) what did he say the weather was going to be?

But they more or less got the thunder/rain here at 1am on Sunday spot on, it was quite spectacular.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Not heard much of Kettley since he left

Think he was interviewed on some C5 documentary looking back at the 2003 heatwave that was broadcast as recently as last weekend. Kettley is 72 now.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Was it Susie Blake who played the part of the posh "Home Counties-type" female weather reporter in the Victoria Wood sketch where she end up expressing pity on those "up north" ?

I wish there was still somewhere where I could watch it again.

 

[AlistairCowell]

I did remember Carol Kirkwood on The Weather Channel (UK) when I was 9! That channel didn’t last long, only two years.

I also remember the BBC Presenters as a 90s kid. Micheal Fish did say in infamous quote the evening before the Great Storm of 1987.

Fish should have said that there would be the hurricane on the way, how wrong he was! He was actually referring to Hurricane Floyd in Florida in America, but failed to mention Florida or America!

Anyone remember ITV National Weather after ITN in the 1990s? I remember Martyn Davis and Sain Lloyd, aka ‘The Weather Girl’.

 

[Buzby]

Fondly still remember Caroline Aherne as part of the Fast Show spoof of a Spanish TV show…. Everything was ‘Scorchio’…..

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Was it Susie Blake who played the part of the posh "Home Counties-type" female weather reporter in the Victoria Wood sketch where she end up expressing pity on those "up north" ?

She was meant to be a continuity announcer, if I correctly recall, possibly loosely based on someone working up in the Cumbria area.

I wish there was still somewhere where I could watch it again.

Here you go...

 

[Peter Mugridge]

One thing that always amuses me... you have the BBC National forecast saying this, that and whatever and giving a list of temperatures for the next few days for certain places...

...and five minutes later, at the end of the local news, you get the local weather forecast giving different temperatures and quite frequently ( especially if it's the London area broadcast ) it's the same forecaster who has just done the national five minutes earlier.

 

[Richardr]

I much preferred ‘It’s Raining Men’ from the Weather Girls…. Not heard much of Kettley since he left

Doesn't he do the weather on LBC News most mornings [I only listen in the mornings and to the London version, I assume he also does the weather on the national feed].