the language of weather forecasts

room for improvement

November 25th, 2011 | Paul Danon

Forecasters may not take kindly to being criticised and/or they may not think that the quality of the verbal aspect of their work can be improved. What’s needed is a way of helping such improvement to happen.

In my post on audience-design, I point out that forecasters tend to speak in terms of what the weather is doing rather than what the weather might do to us. Communication is actually best planned from the recipients’ point of view. National weather-forecasts are admittedly at millions of people, but weather can often be described in terms of parts of the country. It’s nevertheless not enough just to talk about the weather in one region. The forecast should help listeners to know how weather will affect them.

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critique and rewrite of a BBC forecast

November 25th, 2011 | Paul Danon

Transcript and critique of a forecast by Laura Tobin posted on the BBC website at 12:50 today

Hallo there. It is going to be	Nice use of future tense. However, she’s talking about ‘today’ at lunchtime. At that time, you can’t talk about the current day in the future tense; you might do so at daybreak.
another windy day today – not dissimilar to yesterday –	These self-interruptions break the flow and can be confusing. The “not dissimilar to” is longwinded and pretentious.
and we stick with the windy theme	She’s trying to be clever when it’s not necessary and there isn’t time.
throughout much	A contradictory phrase, where ‘throughout’ suggests ‘all’ and ‘much’ undoes that.
of the weekend.	Given the shortage of time, brevity is needed and desirable. This sentence can be rewritten: “Today, tomorrow and Sunday will be windy, like yesterday.” A reference to the previous day isn’t necessary, so this phrase could be even shorter and, consequently, clearer.
Overnight tonight,	Typical, terrible weatherese. All that’s needed is “tonight”.
the gusty winds	Winds do tend to gust, so the adjective is superfluous.
will continue to drive showers in the north	This is nonsense. It’s unclear how a wind drives a shower. What matters to the listener is when and where it will rain. Note the use of ‘showers’ which is a substitute for forecasting the place and timing of rain.
but, further south,	Vague pseudo-geographical information.
it turns	We’ve switched to the present tense which breaks the flow and is inaccurate. This is about the future.
chilly because the winds fall light.	The last two words aren’t an English expression.
The last of our showers push through southern areas but we continue with those showers piling in across Scotland through the rest of the day today.	This is as confused as the two previous sentences. The timing has actually shifted backwards. The preceding sentence was about the forthcoming night; this is about the afternoon and evening ahead. This will be disastrous for comprehension.

In just three sentences of a randomly-selected two-minute broadcast we see weatherese at its worst. Although it’s hard to tell what the forecaster means, it could be: “This afternoon, it’ll stop raining in southern England but it’ll continue in Scotland. The rest of today will be windy, as will tomorrow and Saturday.” 77 waffly words become 25 clear ones.

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what’s wrong with forecasts and how they can be rewritten in English

March 8th, 2011 | Paul Danon

Over on the weatherese Google site I write about a Met Office written forecast and suggest how it may be presented more clearly.

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postcode lottery

October 18th, 2010 | Paul Danon

Today’s BBC forecast for London SE11 says: “A mostly cloudy day, although a few brighter spells are likely, and although much of the day will be dry a little rain rain [sic] is likely here and there.” It’s typically non-committal and uses the unidiomatic “brighter”, which may be a euphemism for sunshine. Most puzzling, though, is the suggestion that rain will happen in SE11 only “here and there”; in other words that it will rain in some parts of the small, urban postcode-area and not in others.

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I am not alone

March 31st, 2008 | Paul Danon

Melanie Reid of The Times is a fellow-sufferer.

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Met office website UK forecast of 14:52 on 5 February 2008

February 5th, 2008 | Paul Danon

Headline:

text	commentary
Most places	Scarcely helpful.
drier tomorrow.	I suppose it’s OK to use a relative even with out the probably implied “than today”.

This Evening and Tonight: [curious initial capitalisation of non-proper nouns]

text	commentary
Many places	More unhelpfulness
seeing showers,	This is a written forecast and I find the use of “seeing” even more irritating, unidiomatic and superfluous than when spoken. “Showers in [places]” would have been clearer and more helpful.
though these should ease from the northwest overnight.	Idiosyncratic and obscure “ease” and even more mystifying “from the northwest”. What will happen? If “ease” means “get lighter” or “stop”, does this phrase mean that a lack of showers will start in the north-west and spread? If so, in which direction(s)?
Very windy in the south	Nice and clear; unusual for a forecast.
with gales around some coasts.	Maybe “around” is idiomatic, though unusual.
Winds easing elsewhere,	More mysterious “easing”.
turning cold in the north	What is turning cold? Winds or weather? Maybe the distinction doesn’t matter.
with a risk of ice later.	“Later” is awkward here. Insofar as the period is overnight, “later” could mean at dawn. Also, what is “ice” here? Ice seldom falls from the skies. Maybe it means the more idiomatic “frost”.

Wednesday: [curious use of the name of a day instead of "tomorrow" which is used in the headline above]

text	commentary
Any showers	“Showers” is vague enough as it is, but the “Any” abandons all responsibility for saying whether or where there will be rain. Forecasting should surely be about prediction, not speculation.
will soon clear	Like “ease” we have the curious intransitive “clear”
to the southeast	More obscurity; what can this mean? Where will the clearing start?
then most places will see some sunshine.	New sentence but not punctuated as such. Non-committal “most places” and “some”, and quaint and un-needed “will see”.
Cloud will thicken	Another intransitive use of a transitive verb, as with “ease”, “clear” and “strengthen”.
from the southwest	More vague direction
later	A time would be helpful
with some patchy rain in the evening.	“patchy rain” is itself a euphemism for the euphemistic and non-committal “showers”. It is hard to believe that forecasters have access to radar, computers and other sophisticated technology. This reads like someone looking at a piece of seaweed.

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another critic

December 19th, 2007 | Paul Danon

Marianne Reedy at The Onion.

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training

December 12th, 2007 | Paul Danon

The UK’s Met Office does introductory and advanced courses in broadcast meteorology and the former includes: “[h]ow meteorologists describe the weather”. The stated aim of that course is that a presenter can “deliver a credible weather bulletin, with the correct emphasis.” It’s interesting that credibility is seen as the desirable attribute rather than accuracy or comprehensibility. I find “the correct emphasis” puzzling and perhaps content-free.

Davie, Auter and Dinu (2006) found that broadcast meteorologists were more likely to favour so-called emphasis on “weather principles and presentation” than were academics teaching journalism. Their abstract says that they advocate: “[A]n integrated model combining atmospheric science with mass communication courses”. I presume this means that people who want to do forecasts on radio and TV need to be taught media-skills as well as meteorology.

The webpage for Reading-university’s BSc in meteorology doesn’t mention broadcasting (indeed, none of the modules’ titles even mentions forecasting), but maybe that course is scientific and theoretical. Valparaiso University writes: “Broadcast meteorology represents another promising career sector, and many recent graduates from our Department have achieved success in this field.” and it is suggested that budding forecasters do a “television-radio minor”.

Parts to do with broadcasting on the Meteorology Education & Training programme run by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research seem to concentrate on weather rather than communication.

Mississippi State University teaches broadcast meteorology by distance-learning. The syllabus does not mention communication-skills or language, but those things may be covered. At Mississippi State, candidates for a BS in broadcast meteorology take communication courses, though these may or may not be weather-oriented. One course includes modules in English composition, public speaking, English literature, broadcast performance and so-called practicum broadcast(s).

What would be good to see would be whether tutors on these courses inculcate language such as Mr Haby’s and how they react, if at all, when their students use it. It could be that the assumption is that, since language is innate, its effective use can be taken for granted. What interests me is what style-related instruction is explicitly or subliminally done. Teaching could be along the lines of “watch me” and/or it could go into choice of vocabulary, sentence-length and grammaticality (including the use of sentences).

All this is grist to the mill for the preparation of my presentation to next year’s World Conference on Broadcast Meteorology in Denver, CO, to be entitled You’re all wasting your time.

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meteorological goulash

December 12th, 2007 | Paul Danon

A Mr Jeff Haby writes: “The difference between an average and above average broadcast meteorologist is often times (sic) catchy phrases and weather descriptions. Language can turn an ordinary forecast into a rememberable (sic), personable, and entertaining forecast.” His (presumably) model forecast includes:

clouds will be hiding the sun
wet conditions
another push of energy moves into the region
keep the jacket handy today
precipitation will stay in the liquid form
frosty conditions will be the rule
one of those nights to throw a few logs on the fire and enjoy indoor romance.

He also has “a list of weather word synonyms and catchy phrases for various weather phenomena” which includes:

a few slushy inches
air you can wear… but hair you can’t wear
an all out war of air masses
atmospheric indigestion
blue norther
chilly willy
clear as a bell
comin’ through like a herd ‘o turtles
doppler garbage
glob of moisture
hang on to the steering wheel
hot enough to fry eggs on car tops
like facing a blow dryer
meteorological goulash
moisture vacuum
mother nature has lost her temper
moving as fast as a turtle
old man winter
parade of storms
parked
pineapple connection
quiet weather
skirt alert
spin zone
system is gradually scooting
thirsty atmosphere
thunder boomers
weather system is diving

I see now where it’s coming from. He actually favours this stuff. What I need to find out next is whether the forecasters’ training schools actually teach their students to talk like that. It would explain a great deal.

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Liam Dutton, BBC Radio Four, Tuesday, 11 December 2007, 07:57

December 11th, 2007 | Paul Danon

Text	Commentary
It’s mainly	Ambiguous; does “mainly” refer to time or place?
settled	A terrible, but sadly widespread, piece of weatherese. It may mean that the weather isn’t going to change; alternatively, it may mean a lack of wind. Either way, it is horribly obscure and trite.
across the UK	No need for this at all. It is a national forecast.
over the next couple of days. There’ll be some sunshine by day but some patchy frost and fog by night.	I fail to see the point of these initial summaries. They are so vague as to be useless and take up time which could otherwise be used for detail.
In England and Wales	A refreshingly idiomatic use of “[i]n” instead of the otherwise habitual “for” or “across”.
it’s a cold and a frosty start.	Present tense is probably acceptable for this phrase, though I suspect it refers to the weather at sunrise which took place one minute before the start of the bulletin. “Cold” and “frosty” are tautological. It cannot be frosty without being cold. What I think this actually means is that it’s frosty. Does this observation really need to be made? We are some way into the bulletin and there has been no serious forecasting yet.
You could even see	An example of weatherese trying to be idiomatic and failing. This sort of phrasing adds nothing to the communication, it could distract listeners and it can be perfectly well expressed with phrases like “there are”.
one or two icy patches on untreated roads.	The “untreated” verges on jargon. People don’t describe roads thus.
We’ve also got some light showers affecting	More futile, time-wasting attempts at informality. These 11 syllables can be rendered as the following six: “There are light showers in …”.
eastern parts of England,	“parts of” is superfluous
particularly coastal parts of East Anglia but these should fade away	The odd bit of hyperbole might be acceptable, but weatherese has far too much of it. The “but” is distracting, as though it were a surprise. Showers simply stop; indeed, they’d not be showers if they didn’t.
quite quickly	Not really necessary and, anyway, “quickly” is probably being misused for “soon”. Better to say that they will stop by 11.
as the morning wears on.	More flourish and attempt to be stylish. Quite un-necessary, time-wasting and distracting. Better: “The showers in eastern England should stop by 11.”
Otherwise, it’s a dry day across England and Wales – lots of blue skies and sunshine.	All he’s saying is that it will be sunny. If it’s sunny, it’s “dry” (weatherese for not raining) and the sky is blue because that’s the colour it is when the sun shines.
It will be cold despite that sunshine, though – temperatures really struggling –	The odd bit of cleverness would be OK, I guess, but there’s far too much, including this “struggling”. It’s only a weather forecast, for goodness’ sake. There is no real drama here. What he’s talking about is simply a cold, sunny winter’s day and that’s all he need say. Maybe forecasters think they make their presentations more interesting with all this embellishment, but what they’re doing should be a simple transfer of information, for which brevity and clarity are best.
highs of just six Celsius, that’s 43 Fahrenheit in London and Birmingham, and around five for Cardiff and Leeds.	Although these are centres of population, they represent just a small amount of land-mass. These are surely instances when one talks in terms of parts of the country, not cities.
Now, for Northern Ireland it’s a chilly start to the day here too, but it’s going to be dry with some sunshine,	This is surely the same forecast as for much of England and Wales.
particularly the further east that you happen to be in Northern Ireland.	Why this detail for such a small area with a population of fewer than two million, especially since it’s not different from Britain? And there’s the clunky, time-wasting “further east that you happen to be in”.
Ah, towards the west during the day the breeze will start to pick up,	Does this mean that there is a breeze, in which case it has surely already “picked up”? Does this actually mean that a breeze will turn into a wind? Note the weatherese (non-English) intransitive use of “pick up” like its intransitive use of “ease”, “strengthen” and “clear”; also the imprecise “towards”.
but it will stay dry and a top temperature of eight degrees in Belfast.	A pleasing use of a future tense for a forecast, when many presenters will use the present to refer to what is to come.
Now, for Scotland we’ve got some showers falling on to cold ground.	Back to weatherese “for” instead of English “in”. There are those showers again, the forecaster’s friend, since they represent almost total uncertainty about precipitation.
That brings	We were in the future tense but have reverted to the present. This will be at least subliminally distracting, as is the ambiguity of the next phrase.
the risk of icy patches across western and southern parts of Scotland this morning.	“parts of” is superfluous. “this morning” could mean the current time or any time between then and lunchtime or at least noon.
It’s going to be a dry day, though.	Ignoring the “dry”, I take issue with the “though”. It is surely not that much of a surprise or contrast that it might be both cold and rain-free. One problem, though: insofar as there are some showers in Scotland (and will be more later), it cannot be a dry day.
There’ll be some decent spells of sunshine, particularly out towards the east.	Sorry to go on, but this “towards” does recur. Can it mean in the east or in the parts of the country through which one passes on one’s way (i.e. towards) the east, such as the middle? And what does the “out” add to it here. Nothing, I suspect, yet millions will be listening to this bulletin.
Further west, though,	And doesn’t this mean in the west? These areas denoted by compass points are vague enough without being further hedged with “towards” and “further”.
the breeze will start to pick up with rain into the western isles by the latter part of the afternoon.	So it certainly isn’t going to be the “dry day” forecast above. This may not be a stylistic point, but a critique can’t ignore it.
Bit of a contrast in temperatures – nine in Stornoway and six for Glasgow and Aberdeen.	Let me try not to comment disparagingly on everything!
Now, overnights (sic)	What could this slip portend? Is it backroom weatherese for “overnight forecast”?
tonight	Tautological.
across England and Wales: cold and frosty but not as cold across Scotland and Northern Ireland, with cloud and rain by the end of the night.	The “with” is unhelpful in distinguishing whether the cloud and rain are destined for the whole UK. Note the double “across”.

I am sorry if my criticisms seem excessive but, in my view, the deviation of weatherese from idiomatic English is significant, persistent and strikingly uniform. One wonders if off-duty forecasters talk to their friends and family about “across Scotland” and fog which burns off. Although I believe that one may criticise without offering an alternative, it may be helpful if I sometimes demonstrate how I might do it. In so doing, one is at a disadvantage since many weatherese originals are obscure.

Here is a version of Mr Dutton’s forecast above.

There’s frost almost everywhere just now, so please watch out for icy roads. Most of the UK will be cold, sunny and rain-free today. The showers that are presently in Scotland and eastern England will stop by mid-morning. Late this afternoon, wind will bring rain to western Scotland which will also arrive in Northern Ireland after dark. Tonight will be particularly frosty in England and Wales. Tomorrow will be quite like today.

My 72 words contrast in length with the original 301. It is true that I may include fewer facts (omitting temperatures since I deem my “cold” adequate), but I would assert that my short version gives a much clearer picture of the day’s weather (national and local) than the rambling, repetitive, pseudo-colloquial and heavily-hedged original. Also, mine is in English, with phrases like “in England” and consistent use of the present tense for the current situation and the future for things to come. I even given an explicit warning to motorists rather than the officious and hyperbolic “icy patches on untreated roads”. I also write in sentences. If I can criticise myself, I probably still haven’t given people a satisfactory synopsis of where it will rain and when.

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