TELEVISION WEATHER IN ICELAND

By ANN WELCH Fnrnham, Szwrey

“ The weather in Iceland is fine with visibility good, but hold on to your hats ” said the Captain as we let down towards Keflavik. We broke cloud at all of 500 ft over a dark lava field with a mountain vanishing into cloud on our right. We ‘ walked ’ the few yards to the terminal building in rain propelled horizontally by 50-knot gusts. On the drive to Reykjavik the sun shone and the weather was indeed “ fine in Iceland ”. By the time we arrived there, half an hour later, premature darkness had fallen and 60-knot gusts were gunning us with hail. Anyone who survives as a forecaster in this dramatic but beautiful country must be a prophet or a fatalist!

For very good reasons Iceland’s meteorologists have put a lot of care and thought into television presentation of the weather. In the studio the forecaster has a four-sided revolving stand with Atlantic and Iceland synoptic charts on two sides (Figs. I, 2), followed by corresponding forecast charts (Figs. 3, 4). He explains in considerable detail what is happening to the weather, and why, taking on average about three and a half minutes. He can have longer if he wants, and can also show other charts or diagrams which he considers to be of interest. When television forecasts were introduced the synoptic chart and its symbols were fully explained so that the public could get the fullest benefit from the information. This policy has paid dividends; everyone, including children, now understands a great deal about weather causes and how to read a weather map.

Although British weather does not usually change with quite the jump-shot speed that it can in Iceland, many domestic arrangements are dominated by it. But national ability to understand the implications of a forecast is generally low; it is often ignorance rather than foolhardiness that results in pleasure boats being blown out to sea, or lost in a fog. The Meteorological Office pushes out weather information with a more than reasonable degree of detail all day long in specialist directions, but for some reason the general public are denied real information by their accepted communication means - TV. If the BRC, instead of showing one synoptic and two dot-and-cherub charts in all of 20 seconds, would give the weather a fraction of the educational bias that they devote so admirably to many other subjects, thousands of people would be able to use the weather a lot more effectively and safely than they do now. Most people today, particularly young ones, take conventionalised presentation of information in their stride, provided that it is properly explained in the first place, so there is no need for other than the internationally-accepted synoptic chart.

Perhaps the nadir of TV weather presentation occurred one evening when over an outline map of SE England were the words:

“ N O FROST, SUNNY PERIODS ELSEWHERE ”,

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