The Weather Forecast Thread

No - far too cluttered and trying to cram to much in. Remove a couple of the placenames, shrink the symbols down a couple of sizes, and it may look better.

Maybe this is the way forward for the BBC to go with this. Non symbol countrywide flyby and overviews for the national weather, and local symbol drenched maps for the regional weather forecasts.

I was test driving a Yaris today.

me: "it's a lovely day isn't it"
guy from garage: "yeah it's great. I can never tell now as I've stopped watching the weather since they changed it all. can't stand that new thing"

I'm really disappointed with the re-tilt of the map. They have deliberately kept it zoomed out so that Scotland is no bigger now than it was when it was obliquely positioned.

There is no acceptable reason for so much of the English Channel to be in shot. I've zoomed the 16:9 image to a centre-cut to see how it look vis a vis safe areas and the map is still too small.

I get the distinct impression that the persons responsible for the map are still sore over being told to change it.

Fantastic - now we just need them to see the error of their ways and do it nationally too. You can see at a glance what the weather is supposed to do!

No, it looks awful. I can't believe the BBC are letting them take such a retrograde step. What is it with these people that prefer an inaccurate symbol to a specific shaded area.

I do have problems with the new system nationally - it's zoomed too far out and the wind representation is pitiful - but the shading for sun/cloud/rain is far easier to understand and more accurate than the stupid old-fashioned symbols.

Apart from the fact we often told to "ignore that bit" because the automatically generated maps often have inaccuracies.

Many local forecasters have been working in their regions for years and know weather patterns for that area like the back of their hand. Is an automatically generated map a replacement for genuine local knowledge?

It's obvious that *both* should be used. But for the local forecaster to ignore the super-computer generated map and plonk their own interpretation is foolish.

It's like a doctor who has years of experience doing a CT scan (which also have anomolies like you say this weather system has) but instead of showing his colleague the scan, just drawing a crude pencil sketch of what he thinks is wrong.

No, they should show the new graphics and ADD local knowledge verbally.

But surely you would be too if you spent a fair bit of money and time getting it up and running, only to be told a few weeks later its rubiish and put it back how it was.

yeah but when the weather forecast for my part of the world is WRONG every single day then it's quite understanable.

That's a very simplistic view of things.

Met Office forecasters have for YEARS had tons of information available to them and combined with local knowledge, have created graphics which are both accurate and locally sound. They don't just look out of the window and plonk a symbol on the map and hope it's alright - the data the maps are generated from has been available for years but now the forecasters have little choice over whether to accept it even if they suspect it could be wrong.

Rob McElwee was "a bit surprised" that a band on rain was on the map the other night. He also concluded that the choice of cities on the summary "was a little unrepresentative" - obviously generated automatically (using the default citites) and added absolutely nothing to the forecast - is this progress?

And if adding local knowledge verbally comes in the form of "ignore the temperatures here" and "I don't think we'll see that cloud today" then a serious rethink should be occuring.

The past couple of days have demonstrated why the crappy shaded blobs DO NOT WORK and the symbols are clearer - there's a massive difference between the white-cloud-and-sun symbol (meaning big fluffy white clouds with bursts of sun) than the black-cloud-with sun symbol (which means darker, blanket clouds with occasional sun). The symbols give a far more accurate feel for what the weather will actually be like than a constantly changing shaded map.

This is not bothering me so much anymore, as I'm now watching ITV weather or going to the Met Office web site instead - if the BBC are going to be so arrogant about playing with their new toy then stuff them, I'll go elsewhere.

The supporters of these new graphics should read the story of The Emperor's New Clothes.

That's much better that they have brought back the old weather symbols, it looks much better, and easier to understand.

Never be too quick to ditch reliable graphics.