The great PM Weather Experiment.
...has caused quite a stir. In the Daily Mail, The Times (here and here), in The Daily Telegraph, and The Independent.
There's more information on the map you can see, at the BBC Weather Centre.
Most of all, we want to hear from YOU. This is an experiment, and it's the views of listeners which will help shape what happens next. Please tell us what you think by clicking on Comments. We hope to have news of developments on the weather in tomorrow night's programme.
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Comments
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Still not much better for us who live on th boundary of three (or more) regions. I live in Stoke; is that the Midlands, Northwest or North Wales? The weather we actually get places us anywhere from the south (east or west) to Scotland. It is better than the waffley forecast we used to get though
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The revised weather forecast is a welcomed improvement but I still think it lacks the precision of the Shipping Forecast. Peter Gibbs first attempt remains the best. Perhaps there should be a slight pause between each of the areas to ensure the attention of the listener.
For your next campaign, could you tackle the Traffic News across the BBC. A number of years ago I lived in Germany. Their format had was clear and concise and understandable to people not local to the area. For example, "M25, southbound, between M4 Junction 13 Heathrow T4 and Junction 12 M3, slow traffic". This would far clearer than the verbose and flowery narrative we hear when we should be concentrating on the traffic.
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The map method is certainly a positive move as you know when to start concentrating.
However, I think the most important factor in the retention of weather forecast information is your 'need to know'. If I have a trip or an outdoor event planned then I tend to hear and remember what is being said during the forecast.
But actually, most of the time, I really don't 'need to know' what the weather is going to be and therefore I hear but don't absorb or remember much of the information.
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Agree with Andrew; best experiment so far has been the shipping forecast version.
That said, this is a fantastic improvement, even if yesterday's grouped Scotland, N. Ireland, Northwest and Northeast England.
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I guess the weather pattern dictates that progress round the country differs from day to day or I would suggest we start top left in Northern Scotland and work down to bottom right South East as we would read a page.
The crucial thing is that the forecaster tells us every time WHERE the Weather is before telling us WHAT it is.
This seems to have been adopted?
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The PM presenters refer to the "New" weather forecast format being trialed at the moment. But when I was young in the 50s and 60s the weather forecast was always presented in the 'shipping forecast' format. I remember my mum turning the radio up for our region then lowering the volume for the rest of the forecast until the news on the hour. I don't know how it was allowed to change over the years into the erratic mismash we have had to put up with for so long. I'll be so glad when it's changed back to what it used to be.
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I had thought that the new style weather forecast was going to be presented in a disciplned format like the shipping forecast.
I think this has not happened on most ocassions, certainly not thursday
My preferance would be for a "shipping style" format with a brief overview at the start which could incorporate any dramatic features
If the change is going to meaningfull it must stick to a structure
This way the listener can know where they are in the bulletin
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Having read a little about Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), it shows that different people respond to different things. It would be impossible to have a one-size fits all approach to the weather forecast. Some people do like a story and other people prefer facts delivered without fluffy delay.
While people are increasing and decreasing their attention this is based on key words. The shipping forecast uses words that aren't generally going to appear in a weather forecast such as Sole and Dogger. The current format repeats the key words diluting their value: East appears in four area names and undoubtedly will get used to describe the behaviour of the weather or the weather itself, "South East. An easterly wind moving into the area, bringing rain which travels to the East as the day progresses" being a rather over-the-top example of how this could easily occur.
The story part can remain. Starting the forecast with a chatty story of the UK weather as a whole would please those who respond to a story. Follow this by a fixed anchor, "now the forecast" (pretend that the first bit is just the forecaster being friendly, not just earning her crust) using the new region names as hiher-value anchors, potentially taken from the days of the danelaw: "Mercia", "Deira", "Wessex", "Strathclyde and Cumbria", etc.
Having the short, conversational summary at the beginning of the forecast will also help listeners to identify the key words they are looking for. If the summary involves the word "Flood" or "Lighning" then people will listen for their region, plus these high-impact words. It must be ensured that the same words are used and synonyms avoided.
Great work and I agree that I have never managed to follow the travel. Good job PM!
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Where and what without a lot of annoying flannel is what we need. The Dreadful Daniel Corbett and his like should be consigned to the bin. The weather is the story not the forecaster with fatuous references to umbrellas or the like. I'm sure that giving a weather forecast without a bit of chat is probably very boring but that's life!!
a brief synoptic preamble, followed by starting with....is a failsafe format. Concentration may wander but that is perhaps a problem for the listener who may be doing several things at the same time?
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Thankyou for improving the detail of the forecast as a practising sailor-glider pilot-gardener and sea fisherman. I am now able to more readily evaluate a days use without going to specialist websites.
So congratulations.
If however. you seek to improve it further might it be possible to reduce the self advertising slot which is always inserted between the weather forecast and the news.
reagards
sprocketpup.
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I agree with Ph1ldad about the problem of boundaries which applies also here in Sheffield. However the new format is a great improvement on the old when 'North' sometimes meant the tip of Scotland and on other days clearly included South Yorkshire.
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The new format is a delight to listen to and much clearer. If kept, will it be applied to all weather reports on R4? Perhaps then we could turn out attention to reinstating isobars, complete with numbers, as a core feature of television weather.
Thank you Aunty, but I'll decide if I need an umbrella or not.
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As a t.v. viewer as well as a national and local BBC radio listener, I should have preferred areas which coincide more closely with the BBC One TV / ITV1 regions, or even the 'Government' regions. I am not sure that the people of Yorkshire think of themselves as living in North East England, more usually reserved for the other counties in this area, but excluding Yorkshire. Lincolnshire is more usually associated with either Humberside or the East Midlands, rather than 'Eastern England', and why has Eastern England "lost" Essex, Herts, Beds (and possibly Northants)? It seems that the 'new' areas harp back to something nearer the 'old' BBC radio regions in use before WWII! Your comments please!
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Much better. Please keep the revised weather format.
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Thank you!
Last night's weather actually had a wind direction in it - just what is needed.
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I agree with the shipping forecast (SF) style and thought it would be a good idea early on. However, I thought that it should follow a clockwise spiral similar to the SF format. An example might be: Northern Ireland, SW Scotland, N Scotland, E Scotland, NE England, E Eng, SE Eng, SW Eng, Wales, NW Eng, Midlands
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For those who have difficulty about Celsius vs Fahrenheit the following jingle that I first heard on PBS in America will help:-
When talking Celsius,
"30 is hot.
20 is pleasing;
10 is not.
Zero is freezing."
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I have been listening to the weather and the comments on the blog - I cannot believe that the new format will make any difference. For me it is much worse. For everyone to understand what we are likely to get in the next 24hours what is needed is the weather story. Which is what we tended to get. That is - the weather is being controlled by a high or a low trending from the south west or north whatever. You could then understand the weather trend and why you might get sun or rain. Now there is a disjointed snapshot - Southwest wind rain - Scotland sun nothing you can put together. The weather is not really amenable to being cut up into regional bullet points without a serious loss of detail which is were we know have ended up - it is a shame.
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mycobs@16: there's a point. Your Man said that the give the weather west to east because that's how it comes across. That being the case surely it should start with Northern Ireland?
Delighted that the experiment was taken so seriously, yielded useful, helpful information and got the attention of such senior weather and Radio 4 people.
Pity about keeping the Fahrenheit but you can't win them all.
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Just to add there seems some strange misunderstanding as to what the shipping forecast is. As I understand it you to get the weather right you have to note the whole sequence down on the standard map linking the regions together so that you end up with something you can then use over the next 24hours - the area comments mean almost nothing in them selves. Possibly this could be explained again for those who think that it is a definitive item.
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