On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 7:28:01 PM UTC+1, Graham Easterling wrote:
On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 6:14:02 PM UTC+1, wrote:

Why so?



This has been said many times before but it worth saying again. The BBC forecasts aren't intended for weather enthusiasts but for those who might want to allow extra time for their journey to work due to adverse conditions or simply whether to take a brolly.

If you take the people who don't work, work from home, don't work in a large settlement, have shift work, or self employed and can choose when they work, are close to where they work etc. you are left with a smallish minority involved in a metropolitan rush hour.

Well I appreciate that, that's why I 'many' people are interested in rush hour weather, clearly there are a lot of others to which the reference to the rush hour is irrelevant. Thing is the rush hour is usually only mentioned if there is adverse weather expected at that time, commuters are a sizeable minority so it seems reasonable to flag up the weather at that time if deemed necessary. The rest of the forecast is for everybody else.
They are for the *general public* so have to cater for everybody.

Col

Cornwall is relatively densely populated county believe it or not - due to it's old industrial base, but it's only Truro and Saltash that have anything resembling a rush hour. If I take my mixed road in Penzance - I'm semi retired, but I used to walk to work. My neighbour is self employed and works at times to suit himself. Then comes a retired Scotsmen followed by a German university lecturer who spends half the year in Penzance writing books. Across the road are 2 Polish builders, Barry who's the landlord, and a chap that works at a Adult Day Centre within easy walking distance. Also a couple of fisherman. The rush hour is pretty irrelevant to all of them. If there's a time in Cornwall when you want to avoid traffic chaos it's 10:00-11:00am on a Saturday changeover day.

I'm not sure how many of my neighbours are weather enthusiasts, though on the tip of Cornwall weather is something you tend to notice more than in say London (where I spent 6 years) where the weather tends to blend into the background umless it was really extreme. You would be surprised how many people I know are USW lurkers, a couple have posted on the odd occasion.

There are people who work outside in all weather, farmers, fishermen, builders etc. who are more in need of advice than people who are so brain dead they have to be be told to turn on the windscreen wipers because there might be spray if it rains.

The forecasts seem to be aimed at a narrow section of society, that many of the presenters belong to.


Of course a bit of 'education' along the way wouldn't go amiss!


Well, I won't argue with that!

Graham
Penzance