The Weather Forecast Thread

This seems to be the ultimate paradox about the new graphics system- it's meant to be way more accurate and representative of the weather where you live- "clearer weather from the BBC" no less. Yet the opening summary has bizarrely been cut from a few lines such as "Rain spreading south by Friday. Colder midweek", to "RAIN AND COLD". Surely this is an utter contradiction in approach.

What could be clearer than the symbols? They are easily and quickly recognised. From now on we'll all be squinting at the screen trying to work out how dark the shading is (most of which is hidden under the temperature box), and probably missing the place we live in as it zooms past.

A classic case of throwing the baby out with the bath water I think.

The biggest loss is any sort of "sun" image, it just appears that they've forgotten to put anything on the map.

Only a few hours to wait and see for real I suppose....

Well you should recognise contradictions alright, it's not long since you were complaining about too much information in the forecasts... and now you're complaining about too little.

Personally, I think people are being a bit stupid complaining about 'straining their eyes' to see what the cloud cover is! Be honest with yourselves: you want to know if its raining, not whether its cloudy. It seems to be telling me everything I need to know. If there is a big blue blob of rain over London, I know it will rain, and if it looks particularly dull over London then I will expect it to be a tad gloomy.

That said though, I think it's stupid they have over complicated the whole cloud business by removing it! Surely putting 3D clouds in, like with the rain, would look much more pleasing?

And I remember the BBC News article saying that the weather symbols wern't dead! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3572562.stm)

Why they've gone back on that I havn't got a clue, because it makes so much sense to have them for the summary at least!

But I'm still looking forward to the weather tomorrow morning!! I'm actually quite tempted to get up early for once!!

yellow.

I'm sure we all expect to see 'first show' screencaps!

From the demos on regional programmes I am quite impressed with the new look, the 3D element certainly isn't as low level as I had initially feared. It is very impressive to see a band of rain coming in and then dispersing rather than trying to work out which symbol actually applies to you.

However the dull brown is very ugly, the current blends of green and blue look much better, and i'm disappointed that they have been dumped for just brown, especially for the sake of clarity which appears to be a misnomer.

I can see the sense in moving away from the symbols entirely but it would probably have been easier to keep them for the summary (unless there is a secret plan to bring them back to passify the POV moaners!?!).

Overall, an improvement but the flashy animation does look ugly on a big brown land mass.

I've taped Weatherview tonight. The last time we see the old symbols!! I still think they made a mistake by ditching them, they could have been animated and incorporated into the new system.

Well yes a rather nice send off there from the rather nice Alex Deakin.

Mind you I don't know if it was just BBC Wales -- but after Alex mentioned "it definitely is farewell to the symbols", the first trail run began "imagine a world without symbols or signs.."

Rather fun I thought.

Yes people that aren't into presentation as much as us would have missed the irony of that one!!

I'll be watching the new system with interest - as I'm sure will many people who watch the BBC forecasts for full weather information - not just at the "do I need a brolly or a jumper" level? (I'm thinking amateur sailors, pilots, windsurfers, farmers etc. - who need to know about low / high pressure systems etc. )

I'm betting that there won't be any isobars - arguably the most useful bit. It'll also be interesting to see the "big print" version they use on the quarter screen services - I can imagine the old symbols are much clearer than the new animating cloud/rain stuff.

It all looks a bit beige to me as well - where has the nice iconic green land, blue sea gone ?

As for the loss of the symbols - if it is true it is a bit like ditching the tube map isn't it? They're both classic, iconic bits of design, which communicate information quickly, simply and effectively.

Here's the "final" weather forecast on BBC News 24. The one at 0200 looked pretty generic, and recorded. When is the weather recorded on BBC News 24 anyway?

http://tvforum.ath.cx:8080/tvftemp/bbcweather1.jpg

http://tvforum.ath.cx:8080/tvftemp/bbcweather2.jpg

http://tvforum.ath.cx:8080/tvftemp/bbcweather3.jpg

http://tvforum.ath.cx:8080/tvftemp/bbcweather4.jpg

BBC N24 Weather - 0130: Windows Media

Speaking to Janice Long on Radio 2 earlier, Rob McElwee said that the old computers were switched off at Midnight, so presumably all the overnight forecasts for N24 had been recorded by then.

He said the new system is now on stream and we'll see it on BBC Breakfast from 6:00, but viewers around the world may see it before that on BBC World.

Looking at the updated website graphics so far, I think it's looking a little better than I thought it might.