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Keith Dancey · November 3rd 05, 04:00 PM posted to uk.sci.weather

In article , Graham P Davis writes:
Keith Dancey wrote:

Maybe the Met Office needs to be more aware that journalists will always
look to take the most extreme meaning from any statement, and place strict
bounds on such forecasts, along with their probabilities - something I
have argued for from the outset.

It doesn't matter how carefully the Met Office were to word the forecast,
the media would still turn it on its head.

In article , (Adrian D. Shaw) writes:

(also concerning my suggestion)

Absolutely not. That's not their job. Their job is to forecast to the best of
their ability, given the data available to them. If the media misinterpret it,
that's their (the media's) problem, not the Met Office's. Otherwise we'll all
have to start reading between the lines.

I disagree on this point. The Met Office issued a Press Statement about a
winter forecast.

Everyone (more-or-less) is interested in winter forecasts, especially if they
are specifically warning about adverse conditions. Therefore, the constituency
to which the Press Statement was addressed was not restricted to science
correspondents (who *might* be considered to be more educated about such matters).

In which case, I think it would have been prudent to place explicit bounds on the
expected event.

The lower bound of which would have been "not expected to be as bad as the winter
of 1996/5".

Wouldn't *that* have stopped dead all talk of "as bad as 63" and worse?

Remember, it was a *Press Statement*. Not a statement addressed to
meteorologists...

Cheers,

keith

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