The weather forecast - an exercise for all MetLink participants

This is an exercise for all MetLink participants.

1 Listen to the weather forecast on the radio. At the same time, record the forecast.

2 Watch a different weather forecast on television. At the same time, record the forecast.

3 After each forecast, write down from memory what you believe the presenter of the broadcast said the weather would be in your area.

4 Now listen to, or watch, each recording.

5 Had you listened / watched carefully enough? Was the forecast for your area what you thought it was?

Points for discussion:

Was the forecast presented clearly and in language you understood? Did the presenter of the forecast use jargon you did not understand?

Was the forecast presented in a geographically systematic way, or did the presenter tend to flit from one area to another so that you were not sure which area was being focused on at any given moment?

And also:

If you compare forecasts from different radio stations or different TV channels, do you find variations in presentation clarity? Are presentations consistently clearer on some stations / channels than others?

Does the accuracy of the weather forecast vary from station to station or channel to channel?

How do you judge the accuracy of a weather forecast? Do you consider it accurate if the forecasters predicted the movements of weather systems correctly but did not quite get the interpretation right, or do you judge accuracy by the weather which occurred where you live? Let us suppose, for example, the forecasters said a warm front would bring you rain but, instead, a few centimetres of snow fell. If the movement of the front was forecast 100% correctly but a small difference of temperature made the difference between rain and snow, how wrong do you consider the forecast was, if at all?