About ITP
Childhood ITP
Teenage ITP
Adult ITP
Medical Advisors
Research into ITP
Events
Convention
Seminar
Send for:-
Publications
American Perspective
Downloads
Leaflets and more....
Webwatch
February 2009
It is cold as I write this and there is a layer of snow several inches deep outside. Us Brits have a reputation of always talking about the weather. Well, why not?
It occurred to me that some people may get their weather forecasts from the TV and not the web, so a quick look at web based weather forecast may be helpful. The BBC have a nice page at www.bbc.co.uk/weather. Clicking the links down the left hand side yield maps that show which kind of nastiness is coming our way and when it will (might!) arrive.
Ever since the "great storm" of 1987, I have found the TV weather forecasts somewhat overstate the severity of the weather, words like severe or extreme colour the weather reports, making me wonder if they have a kind of collective guilt for Michael Fish telling us all "not to worry, there isn't" in response to a fictitious report of a woman phoning the Weather Centre after "she" had heard reports of a hurricane about to hit the UK. The Met Office has a web-page about it at www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/anniversary/storm1987.html
The Met Office site has a lot to offer on www.metoffice.gov.uk. Under the heading Marine they give more detail than the famous Shipping Forecast broadcast on BBC Radio 4 but if you are addicted to Faeroes, Bailey, Rockall, you can find a decode at www.fatbadgers.co.uk/Britain/shipping.htm.
An easy to use site at www.xcweather.co.uk shows some detail either left out or made hard to find on other sites. Such detail includes visibility, a factor important to many involved in outdoor pursuits.
Clicking "more maps on" on the Weather Channel's site uk.weather.com gives a zoomable radar view of where the rain is, somewhat better than the vague rain symbols scattered around some maps you see. It is a good place to find the weather for travel forecasts, as in addition to current forecasts, it shows how the weather changes over the year, making planning easier. I just looked at Moscow, the results showing that the little cold snap we are having outside is nothing at all, -1 here, -12 in Moscow!
Some newspapers have the weather on their websites in an attempt to provide added value, encouraging you to come back to look at what else they have on offer. Their efforts vary in quality, the Times has www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather which shows the weather fronts. On the TV these fronts are called "bands of rain" or similar from the apparent belief that the population do not know what a front is. TV forecasts in the USA show fronts, cold fronts with little triangles on them, warm fronts with rounded blobs, but these are only shown on UK TV forecasts very sparingly. The Telegraph has their weather on www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather, the maps being at the bottom of the page. Not having a weather maps may be a problem. Whilst I write this, on www.holiday-weather.com the report says "Light snow grains" but outside proper snow has been falling all day. The Guardian has "Rain and Snow" for London on their site at www.guardian.co.uk/weather whilst the Daily Mirror showed "Cloudy" on www.mirror.co.uk/weather when I selected London. It is an interesting pastime to look at the various forecasts, they often differ quite a lot.
It is said that the Met Office get the weather right 85% of the time, this is about 6 out of 7, so in 1 out of 7 they get it wrong. Shame that is often the Sunday when I want to go out….
Happy Surfing.
Howard