Over dramatic weather forecasting.

My geography teacher at secondary school said, "Britain doesn't have climate; it has weather". It's a smallish island and weather systems can bypass, change completely or affect only one part of the threatened land mass. Overall, it may well be correct for the larger land mass, not just not a particular area. It is the same where I live in New Zealand. I live in a small town at the top of the South Island. We are surrounded by hills so we often have our own microclimate. It can be absolutely tanking down a few kilometres away and we are sitting outside in bright sunshine. We do get snow but only on the higher hills, but that causes the quite fierce winter winds to be extremely cold. (Plenty of snowfields in the lower south of the island)

The same thing applies here in Australia.

Back in 1999 we had an unreported storm in Sydney which caused absolute mayhem. Cars floating away in the Eastern Suburbs, roof's wrecked which resulted in houses flooding and people totally caught unaware as they drove to collect their children from school.

Since then the weather forecast always err on the wild side.
I think it was due to the unprecedented damage and subsequent insurance claims which were astronomical.

Now I take it all with a grain of salt, I've learned to read the weather maps and always refer to the local radar to see what's ahead. Technology has been really helpful in this regard.

The online radar sites operate in real time so I suggest people become acquainted with their local radar maps. I particularly refer to them if I'm planning on doing a load of washing lol!!!

I have noticed over the years that the forecasters are throwing new terms about. What we used to call a 'Pineapple Express' (warm wind and rain originating from mid-Pacific) is now called an Atmospheric River), we now have 'heat domes' in summer, etc.

I know for North America, there have been some hurricanes that wreaked havoc that was much worse than forecast, so I think they tend to overstate the potential damages.

Strangely enough, I find it more difficult to find wind info included in the forecasts. Weather forecasting is an interesting science, and I wish I was presented with this info when I was in school.

Our area was meant to have snow. Had some but quickly melted. Been very frosty till today and yes I do think it is over dramatic to have all these warnings. Just tell us the forecast and we can decide ourselves. DB had to drive from Northumberland to Edinburgh last Thursday for meeting about DM and managed fine then he drove back and was fine then he drove to Cambridge on Friday and was fine then back to Northumberland. If he had taken heed of the forecasts we would have had to cancel the meeting.

Weather forecasting is no longer accurate on most days, ,so I tend to use my judgement instead of listening to the forecast.

If we are going out of our local area, I check two or three sites online, which sometimes clarifies things a bit, but not always.

DH and I have a code phrase for over-egged reporting (often the weather and occasionally sickly stories about pets)

"BUT is it ATROCIOUS" yet?

If you work at it you can drag 'atrocious' out into 5, 6 or 7 syllables. And it passes the tine.

The media overdramatize everything including news and weather, it’s what they do so why not forecasts, the warning of storms at least give you the opportunity to prepare if you want to.

When I got up last Friday there was a snow blizzard blowing, true to the forecast the previous night. I immediately cancelled my lunch booking, quite expecting the weather to persist all day. Left me feeling a proper wimp when the sun came out and the snow disappeared before lunch.

Since the BBC stopped using the Met Office for it’s forecasts in 2018, I’ve noticed their forecasts have frequently been inaccurate and unreliable.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Weather#:~:text=On%206%20February%202018%2C%20BBC,weather%20information%20for%2094%20years.

It was suggested we may well have “another summer like last year’s” this coming summer, on the BBC News channel last night, goose1964!

We had 4" of snow last Friday, not fit to.go.out, but mostly gone by late Saturday

If you read The articles the headlines are attached to I usually find they've omitted to put something like at high levels in the highlands of Scotland in the headline.

How long before the hottest summer on record is forecast

Lucky to dodge the snow. We live just off the A1 a few miles north of Peterborough and had 10 cm of snow in 2 hours. Yes it melted quite quickly but caused chaos for a while.

I agree that if they’re not careful, such dire warnings which tend to come to very little for the majority of the country, will start to be ignored, (rather like the tale of the little boy who cried wolf just a bit too often) when one day, it might be spot on, and paying attention will be very important. I feel it’s not the weather forecasters per se, but rather the media reporters who hype it up and just love to suggest impending doom and gloom - they do this with so many things, creating unnecessary panic.

Media hype a lot of things up nowadays.

lemsip

well, it doesn't mean everywhere does it! when they forecast snow you then need to look at the map of the uk to see where and if it covers your area or not!

Well the map didn't cover our area and it didn't last week and we didn't get any. It's a no, no, win situation. We did look at the map we're not that daft the TV did not correlate with the local one.

I'm glad for warnings better safe than sorry and we can all look up detailed local forecasts if we wanted use our own judgement.

well, it doesn't mean everywhere does it! when they forecast snow you then need to look at the map of the uk to see where and if it covers your area or not!

Never easy to see into the future. Better forewarned to be careful and rearrange plans if possible- maybe, especially given the nhs situation.

Well, they didn't warn us about the whiteout we got yesterday, sunny morning then heavy snow, which is not melting today.
I worry that the warnings will be so over the top we ignore them and get caught out, we have plans for today if we can get out of the village up the steep hill. We would have made the appointments for another day if we had used our local knowledge and intuition.

I suspect that forecasters now choose to "fail safe", and to talk it up rather than talk it down, as poor old Michael Fish notoriously did with the hurricane many years ago. I have no problem with this approach, as I'd rather be prepared for the worst, even if it doesn't quite arrive as forecast.

We have a Motorhome and an elderly friend often warns us of the weather forecast as we plan to go on our journey. It’s never been as bad as forecasted. I just say to her, “Same weather, different view.”

MawtheMerrier

I suppose they are terrified of another Michael Fish “clanger” on the basis of “better safe than sorry”🤔

Yes.
Snow - what snow?
Try telling that to those who were snowed in!

If you don't like the weather in the UK, just wait a minute. 😁

Well we have had it all in last few days, snow, gales, lovely warm sunshine then a massive storm last night and now deluge. Dramatic indeed.

Ah...sorry... crossed.