Weather Schools Supplement September 1963 No. 24

RADIO AND TELEVISION WEATHER FORECASTING By JACK ARMSTRONG Meteorological Ofice

IT is just 10 years now since George Cowling appeared before the evening BBG TV audience to give the first television broadcast in this country by a ‘weatherman’. The occasion was unique because Mr Cowling was not a professional actor, he was a forecaster employed by the Meteorological Office without any previous experience of television work.

All he was expected to do was to explain the weather situation to the viewers with the aid of weather maps and then give the weather forecast in terms which non-technical people could understand.

Right from the start, the BBC wanted ‘weathermen’ rather than actors because they felt that the specialized job of forecasting the weather could best be explained by someone trained in the work-ven if the weatherman himself did not turn in the ‘polished’ performance of which the actor would have been capable.

A team of three weathermen was built up in 1953 and since then, although the individual weathermen have come and gone, there has been a TV forecast by a Meteorological Office forecaster from the team on every day of the year except Christmas Day-even the weatherman needs a holiday some time!

In May this year another kind of weather broadcast celebrated the start of its fifth year. This is the ‘Holiday Weather’ broadcast which goes out on the radio every morning from early May to late September or early October at 8.55 am in the Light Programme. This is an informal weather forecast in easy language with a marked ‘slant’ towards the holiday-maker. The idea is to present the weather in such a way that people who are intending to spend the day out-of-doors will get a quick idea of the way in which the weather will change during the day in their particular area. We try to give specialist information for yachtsmen, gliding enthusiasts and so on and special mention is made for people who might want to watch the main sporting events of the season such as golf, tennis, horse-racing or cricket. The broadcast comes from our own studio in Kingsway and although the TV weathermen take part, the broadcasts are given also by other forecasters employed at the Weather Centre. SO, as this weather feature enters its fifth summer, let’s hope the weather itself will be as good as it was in the first year, 1959.

First we must know what the weather is doing row, so lots of weather reports from all

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Of course, he was not expected to act.

In weather forecasting there are always three stages.

B BC CoPyright

Fig. I . The author on the television ‘set’

over the world, all made at the same time, are plotted on a chart which is then analysed to give us our weather map. The nest stage is to decide which way the various weather patterns will move and how they will change, so we must prepare another map which will show where these weather patterns are espected to be in 24 hours’ time. From this forecast map we can then prepare a forecast which tells how the weather will change a t a particular place between now and tomorrow.

And that is precisely the sequence in which the television weather forecast is presented. The weathermen do most of their work in the London Weather Centre in Kingsway and from here they take a copy of the 6 am weather map to the TV Centre at White City. There, in the studio, this map is copied on to a large Perspes covered chart, six feet by four feet. In order to have the very latest weather information, the forecaster telephones the London Weather Centre at about 5 pm and is given details of the latest forecast map, for midday the following day, together with the latest forecast issued by the Central Forecasting Office at Bracknell. Between 5.30 and 6 pm he draws the forecast weather map on to another large chart in the television studio. He then has about 20 minutes in which to work out how he will present his forecast and finally goes ‘on the air’ just after 6.20 pm.

The weatherman’s broadcast is entirely un-scripted-he just describes his weather charts as he sees them, he has no notes or any form of prompting, and he must talk for, as near as possible, two minutes and fifty seconds and certainly not more.

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Immediately alongside the studio is the glass-walled control room where the presentation controller sits. He is responsible for ‘cuing’ the weatherman to start and finish, and is able to select the camera ‘shot’ which he thinks is most suitable. He has alongside him a sound engineer, controlling the microphones, a lighting engineer who can vary the studio lighting and a transmission engineer who adjusts the television picture which is being sent to the transmitter at Crystal Palace.

In the studio are three cameras, one for the weatherman, one for the national summary chart and one for the regional summary chart. So, apart from the weatherman himself, there is a team of at least seven other people in the studio and control-room, all working together to put out the broadcast.

In spite of all the care which is taken things do sometimes go wrong- it would be very remarkable if we were to make 364 broadcasts a year without any mishaps whatever. All the weathermen have stories to tell of this kind-there was, for example, the occasion on which the news- reader lost all track of time and carried on reading for nearly two minutes of my time! That was the evening on which I described two weather charts and gave a forecast for the whole of the United Kingdom in 45 seconds!

Like every other occupation, it has its drawbacks but these are often forgotten when one remembers the pleasantness of the people who recognize you out-of-doors. In six years as a weatherman I have been spoken to on hundreds of occasions by complete strangers, but I can say quite honestly that no one has been unpleasant-though some have been rather persistent! It is a job we all quite enjoy and I hope that the BBC will continue to use professional weathermen for many years to come.

INDEX TO SCHOOLS SUPPLEMENTS Nos. 1-24 The articles and reviews that have appeared during the first two years of the Schools Sufifilement are listed below. For convenience they have been roughly classified by su bjkct .

OBSERVATIONS A N D INSTRUMENTS

Atmospheric Pressure Observations Temperature Observations Wind Observations Meteorological Observations at Sea Humidity Observations Weather Radar tipper Air Observations Measurement of Rainfall A Home-made Sunshine Recorder The Tiros Family Location of Thunderstorms .4 School Anemometer Meteorological Reconnaissance Flights

K. H. A. Stewart D. J . George P. H. G. Deeks R. H. A. Stewart J. M. Bayliss P. J. Bacon K. J. Linsdale I. H. Chuter P. G. Hookey R. H. A. Stewart S. I. Nute S. C. Littlewood G. F. Earnshaw

PHYSICAL METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY

Hurricanes P. F. Emery Smog -4. R. Meetham Maps of Frost and Snow Frequency for

Radiation (Parts I and 11) C. D. Walshaw British Isles

Oct 1961 Nov 1961 Dec 1961 Mar 1962 June 1962 July 1962 Aug 1962 Aug 1962 Nov 1962 Nov 1962 Jan 1963 May 1963 June 1963

Oct 1961 Dec 1961

Jan 1962 Jan and Feb 1962

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