🚀 go-pugleaf

Ian Johnston wrote:
> On Mon, 16 May 2005 18:46:14 UTC, David Marsh
<david@bogus.domain.dom>
> wrote:
>
> > [1] I can't believe that real meteorologists, which I thought all
BBC
> > weather forecasters are, could surely have failed to notice that
> > Scotland's 'varied' topology packs a lot of different weather into
a
> > small space, and therefore there can be many fairly local
differences,
> > so it's important that the map keeps the same proportions
throughout so
> > that an equal amount of detail can be shown.
>
> I'd have thought that somewhere with a lot of variation is precisely
> where you'd want to weight things to centres of population. Do we
> really want as much time spent on Ullapool vs Thurso weather as
> Glasgow vs Edinburgh? Local forecasts can, of course, fill in the
> detail, but national ones are probably justified in sticking mainly
to
> the busier areas.

But why should it be based on population numbers? How many people in a
dense population centre will >need< to know whether tomorrow will be
rainy then cloudy or vice versa? Most people who need to know are those
in the country or those travelling through the country. So a national
forecast should be, well, national. If Edinburgh needs more forecasts,
let it be a local forecast. But as I said elsewhere, there is a spatial
limit to how accurate a forecast can be, it can't scale with population
density. An area the size of Edinburgh doesn't get more complicated
weather because there are more people living here.

But back to the point in hand, I saw the 'National' weather forecast on
News24 today and it was pants. Why should the perspective be as if you
are a few hundred miles above Paris? Why not directly over the
midlands? Why perspective at all? Even IF you argue that more time
should be spend talking about the SE weather, that only adds arguement
that the rest of the country's weather should be shown as clearly as
possible to make up for the lack of monologue. And as for those damp
patches indicating cloud and naff rain cartoons, they're naff. Pure and
simple. There was nothing wrong with the old way though I like the
radar images best.

TTH