On 05/02/12 13:52, Liam Steele wrote:
On 05/02/12 13:17, Graham P Davis wrote:
On 05/02/12 12:13, Liam Steele wrote:
On 05/02/12 07:08, Graham P Davis wrote:
. . . showed a table of snow depths that she said were from Met Office
stations this morning where the top depth was 16cm from Church Fenton.
She then said it was probably due to drifting. Nice of her to criticise
her colleagues on breakfast TV.

Graham

Did she say something along the lines of 'This reported value may be
high due to drifting' or 'For goodness sake, my idiotic colleagues at
the Met Office have reported a snow depth of 16cm which has clearly been
affected by drifting, but because they are unprofessional and have no
sense, they have reported it as an actual snow depth'.

If it was the former, then I don't really see it as a criticism, and I
doubt 99.999% of the public would either. Okay, you could argue that she
didn't have to show it, but we all know that people on TV like to quote
the highest values of snow/wind/temperature they can, so I'm guessing
that's the reason it was shown.

I don't really see it as unprofessional, but I've never worked at the MO
and so accept that they may feel differently!


I wonder whether it was meant as an implied criticism or, perhaps, she
has never had to measure snow depth and doesn't know how to do it
herself. Therefore she may have just guessed that they stuck the ruler
in the wrong place. It wouldn't be the first time that a TV
meteorologist had shown themselves to be ignorant of observing practices.

You're probably right that not many viewers would have recognised it as
a criticism but, assuming these were manual observations, I'm damned
sure the observers themselves would have taken it that way. However, why
did she say they're Met Office reports and then imply that they weren't
to be trusted?



I'm guessing it's that she's never measured snow depth, or assumes it's
not a human observation, so may be affected by drifting. I can't imagine
she'd purposefully criticize the MO on air, but you never know! Am I
right in thinking all BBC weather presenters have to do the MO trainee
forecaster course? If so, I'd have thought they'd cover observing
practices in there?


Following is from Wikipedia:

-----------
Career

On graduation from University in 2003, she joined the Met Office. On
completing her training, she was assigned in October 2004 to the Cardiff
Weather Centre, where she gained experience of broadcasting on BBC Radio
Wales. In 2005, Tobin moved to RAF Brize Norton, providing aeronautical
meteorology reports and briefings to Royal Air Force transport crews,
and to the media of the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS).[1]
-----------

I did a little over a couple of years observing in the early 60s. In the
mid-70s, when forecasting, I still did some observations as well - at
one station it was mandatory for forecasters to keep their eye in - but
I don't know whether Laura had that opportunity.

I had a few occasions when observations were ignored, usually because
they didn't fit the forecast. One morning, there was NE'ly with St all
over E Anglia. Large spots of rain fell - the sort that leaves a
half-crown-sized blotch on tarmac - and was reported as such by several
stations. The SR issued over half-an-hour later said something like "the
drizzle over E Anglia will slowly die out." That got me annoyed but the
next hour, several stations reported moderate rain. A special SR was
issued - "we don't know what's causing the rain over E Anglia but it is
expected to die out."

Once, when I was forecasting at Wattisham, widespread low stratus was
expected to become even lower during the evening with poor visibility
and hill fog. This was Strike's story at the afternoon conference but
when it came to me for my contribution, the last one on the list after
everyone had agreed the party line, I went for the cloud lifting with
improving visibility. I based this on a lifting of the cloud base of
several hundred feet I'd seen reported by a Norfolk coastguard. Of
course, I was told that the obs couldn't be trusted. I argued that
previous small changes I'd seen at that station had been replicated at
the Met Office station downwind and so I trusted the coastguard.
Half-an-hour later, the Met Office station reported the same lifting of
cloud base seen the previous hour by the coastguard. The improvement
continued, spread over the rest of the area and persisted all night.


--
Graham Davis, Bracknell, Berks. E-mail: change boy to man
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