.. . . 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

Hi Graham
Why do we do this when it doesn't fit their predictions. I was looking at
the radar yesterday evening and there were pockets of heavier snowfall.
Where I live in Pudsey not a million miles from Church Fenton we had 6 or 7
cm . We had very little drifting. I find it difficult to imagine that they
had 16 cm even in drifts. I have a friend who lives about 8 miles away from
Church Fenton and he will let me know. The depth may have been 6 cm in
Church Fenton. Can't believe that this would turn out the snowiest either.
Again looking at the radar last evening its more likely to be the tops of
the Pennines where the greatest depths occurred! On another point Church
Fenton would not be manned Saturday evening to measure the snow. Not sure
what instrumentation they have but if its automatic I would question this
depth!


Rob
Farsley

"Graham P Davis" wrote in message ...

.. . . 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

On 05/02/12 09:26, Rob Brooks wrote:
"Graham P Davis" wrote in message ...

. . . 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.

Hi Graham
Why do we do this when it doesn't fit their predictions. I was looking
at the radar yesterday evening and there were pockets of heavier
snowfall. Where I live in Pudsey not a million miles from Church Fenton
we had 6 or 7 cm . We had very little drifting. I find it difficult to
imagine that they had 16 cm even in drifts. I have a friend who lives
about 8 miles away from Church Fenton and he will let me know. The depth
may have been 6 cm in Church Fenton. Can't believe that this would turn
out the snowiest either. Again looking at the radar last evening its
more likely to be the tops of the Pennines where the greatest depths
occurred! On another point Church Fenton would not be manned Saturday
evening to measure the snow. Not sure what instrumentation they have but
if its automatic I would question this depth!


On the Andrew Marr show, she included my old station, Wattisham, as one
that probably misreported the snow depth.

Regardless of whether the depths are correct or not, surely she
shouldn't come on national TV and say that these observations are made
by the Met Office and then imply that the staff don't know what they're
doing.

If the measurements were somehow made by automatic means and were
somehow in doubt, then they shouldn't have been shown at all.


--
Graham Davis, Bracknell, Berks. E-mail: change boy to man
LibreOffice: http://www.documentfoundation.org/
openSUSE Linux: http://www.opensuse.org/en/

"Graham P Davis" wrote in message
...


On the Andrew Marr show, she included my old station, Wattisham, as one
that probably misreported the snow depth.

Regardless of whether the depths are correct or not, surely she shouldn't
come on national TV and say that these observations are made by the Met
Office and then imply that the staff don't know what they're doing.


I agree, it's unprofessional behaviour.
She said it a second time later on as well.
However if she had doubts as to the data's validity,
why did she use it in the first place? Surely she must
have a degree of input as to what statistics she uses
in the forecast. It's not like she's some regional ITV
'dolly bird' type who doesn't actually know anything
about the weather and will just be spoon-fed the info.
--
Col

Bolton, Lancashire
160m asl

On 05/02/2012 12:49, Col wrote:

I agree, it's unprofessional behaviour.
She said it a second time later on as well.
However if she had doubts as to the data's validity,
why did she use it in the first place? Surely she must
have a degree of input as to what statistics she uses
in the forecast. It's not like she's some regional ITV
'dolly bird' type who doesn't actually know anything
about the weather and will just be spoon-fed the info.

Isn't she expressing the official Met Office view rather than her own
opinion? I don't think TV forecasters have as much freedom of speech as
we might think. Poor Laura seems in danger of suffering from the Michael
Fish syndrome at this rate!!!!

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!

--
Liam (Milton Keynes)
http://physics.open.ac.uk/~lsteele/

On Feb 5, 7:08*am, 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

I would always treat snow depths with a pinch of grit.

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?


--
Graham Davis, Bracknell, Berks. E-mail: change boy to man
LibreOffice: http://www.documentfoundation.org/
openSUSE Linux: http://www.opensuse.org/en/

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?

--
Liam (Milton Keynes)
http://physics.open.ac.uk/~lsteele/

On Feb 5, 1:52*pm, 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?

--
Liam (Milton Keynes)http://physics.open.ac.uk/~lsteele/

If it's a Met Office AWS then the snow depth will be measured using a
sonic measuring device. Obviously, it can't detect whether it's
measuring level snow or a drift which, I presume, prompted Ms Tobin's
remark. There are so few manned Met offices these days that I would
assume most, if not all, of the values shown were measured in this
way. It would have been better if she had explained this rather than
leaving room for the doubts shown above!