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Interestingly the BBC doesn't actually do it's own forecasting, only relaying information provided by the firm it's contracted - Weather forecasting is done by

Interestingly the BBC doesn't actually do it's own forecasting, only relaying information provided by the firm it's contracted - Weather forecasting is done by a few companies in the UK, of which the BBC has a contract with one (MeteoGroup) and I believe ITV has a contract with another (the MetOffice).

Theodores 8y ago
Historically the BBC has always got their data for free from the Met Office. I don't watch BBC these days but there is the matter of presentation and doing the graphics. So it can be contracted out under 'producers choice'. For a long time the Met Office had their private arm. So if ITV et al. get the private version of the Met Office and the BBC have the Met Office then it can be hard to get in to that business. A lot of things that make sense with a state ownership model of the economy fall apart when you have things like 'producers choice' or the Met Office expected to make a buck in the private sector. Ultimately though there are two sources for weather information and it comes down to who gets the observations data and who has the super computers. In the USA they have the public/private model right. The government has the computer and the data is available for free. In the UK (the only other place with the observations/supercomputer combo) the idea is to make money off it in this weird privatised state business sector that the Met Office finds itself in. The internet makes the data a commodity of sorts, who knows where it comes from and how accurate it really is. In the olden days of regional TV you would have actual forecasters who knew their area. Imagine you have a lake in the Alps and the computer gives you the data for the mountain top for the town by the lake below. The nearest observations come from the airport on the other side of the lake. A professional forecaster who knows the observations for that town would be able to work it out properly and have an informed guess for the town, and hack the model accordingly. The BBC and other broadcasters have stepped away from having that aspect of local TV with the human aspect of a quality weather forecast. I guess it matters not if the observation data is getting better.

Theodores 8y ago

Historically the BBC has always got their data for free from the Met Office. I don't watch BBC these days but there is the matter of presentation and doing the graphics. So it can be contracted out under 'producers choice'. For a long time the Met Office had their private arm. So if ITV et al. get the private version of the Met Office and the BBC have the Met Office then it can be hard to get in to that business. A lot of things that make sense with a state ownership model of the economy fall apart when you have things like 'producers choice' or the Met Office expected to make a buck in the private sector. Ultimately though there are two sources for weather information and it comes down to who gets the observations data and who has the super computers. In the USA they have the public/private model right. The government has the computer and the data is available for free. In the UK (the only other place with the observations/supercomputer combo) the idea is to make money off it in this weird privatised state business sector that the Met Office finds itself in. The internet makes the data a commodity of sorts, who knows where it comes from and how accurate it really is. In the olden days of regional TV you would have actual forecasters who knew their area. Imagine you have a lake in the Alps and the computer gives you the data for the mountain top for the town by the lake below. The nearest observations come from the airport on the other side of the lake. A professional forecaster who knows the observations for that town would be able to work it out properly and have an informed guess for the town, and hack the model accordingly. The BBC and other broadcasters have stepped away from having that aspect of local TV with the human aspect of a quality weather forecast. I guess it matters not if the observation data is getting better.