"Cheerful" Spin on Weather

Does anyone else think that it is right for weather presentation and commentation has to be "cheered" up in order to make it sound more positive?

Following reports in the last seven days newspapers, I was interested to learn that the way that weather is described on television has to be spun in order to make it more positive. For instance "Chilly in places" will be become warm for most. "Wet in the north" will become mainly dry. etc. This is, in my opinion, both patronising and misleading. If it is going to rain I want to know. Even if the chances of it raining in my area are slim, I still want to be prepared for the possibility of it. What will be dumbed down next? The news? Will suicide bombers in Iraq be headlined as "Slight Skirmishes accidentally kills a small handful of people in Baghdad, but don't worry because most of the population are absolutely fine".

If the world population is 6bn, then the BBC reports the Tsunami:

"5,900,000,000 don't die in tsunami"

Curious, but I suppose in this instance they're trying to get what affects most people rather than the minority - going for the 'mainly' option rather than the 'good/bad somewhere' approach.

Anyone else find the five day forecast on the BBC website utterly un-useful? I don't particularly care that it's going to be sunny for the majority of the day, I want to know about the half an hour it's going to p*** it down so I can ensure I have a brolly

There was a thing on Five Live about this the other day, apparently in the US a company that runs car washes found that the got more custom if the weather forecasters said it would be partly sunny rather than partly rainy..... despite both phrases meaning the same. The request for the change in terminology went all the way to congress.

Think you've missed the point, they're not going to stop telling us what the weather will be, they'll just phrase it better.

Part of the problem is that forecasters automatically focus on the negative: a good example is saying 'bad news is that it's going to rain' when of course rain isn't necessarily a bad thing. They'll just say that it's going to rain and not editorialise it

But to me the fact that it will rain for an hour is more important than it being dry for the rest of the day

And they'll tell you that... what's the problem?

The problem is that to most people "dry" isn't weather - it's the status quo! The weather is things like rain, wind etc.


What next - will the news bulletins have to lead with "Nothing happened in most of the World today" and will Match of the Day concentrate on 0-0 draws?

So that's why weather presenters come across as the sort of person who could give you, the worst news in the world with a smile.