Which BBC Forecast Do You Like Better?

[Zenarcher]

What one do you like better?

Older Version

Newer Version

[J10]

There is already a thread on this in the Forecast section, but I will allow the poll to run for a time. My thoughts are for the newer forecasts being better, for reasons I have specified frequently.

[PB22]

The older version by a long, long way. Oh how I miss those symbols.

[Optimus Prime]

Older version.

Oh and that Northerly in the first picture...proper Modern day northerly that one

[Thundery wintry showers]

For regional forecasts, the new version, because the new graphics are well suited to covering a small area of the country and the North East regional forecasts have if anything become more informative in recent years.

For national forecasts, the old version by a long way. Not because of the graphics, but rather the change of presentation style which started around 2002.

I voted for the old version because I think the national forecasts have declined far more than the regional ones have improved, and so the net trend is down.

Edited January 24, 2010 by Thundery wintry showers

[grab my graupel]

Yep, it's the old version for me too

For some reason, the newer style forecasts give the impression that they have been computer generated, while the old style forecasts appear to have more of a human touch to them.

[Methuselah]

Old format for me. I just think that fancy graphics avoid the necessity for having MetO personnel doing the presentations...

[trickydicky]

I prefer the old style forecasts in every way bar one. The new type are better at showing where precipitation will be and in what form it will fall. Other than that they are pretty pants. For me, the biggest fault in the new style forecasts is temperatures. They only show temperatures in cities, and even then, only about 5 of them. What use is it to me if they only show the temps for London, Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow. They stick everyone under a kind of hazy blue when its frosty, so if my area is under blue, and so is say, Aviemore, does that mean the temperature will be the same here as there? Us hicks in the sticks pay our liscense fee too and deserve to know how much colder it will be here than just outside Piccadilly Circus! Plus they are poor on wind, when I was in Scotland last week and was planning to go skiing I wanted to know which day would be least windy and therefore most likely to be open, in the end I just had to guess.The old forecasts used to be in far more detail, showing isobars and wider synoptics etc and talking about the day before a little if something interesting had happened. Plus, the new forecasters look a bit too nice and smiley to me, slightly too pretty boyish. I preferred the stern but fair style of good old Bill Giles, Michael Fish, Ian MacKaskill etc..

[Thundery wintry showers]

Just been watching some od the old-style forecasts on Youtube and they strongly suggest that the old graphics can be- and occasionally were- used to generate the same effects as the new ones, in particular "splodges" of precipitation instead of symbols.

After seeing those I'm afraid I no longer see any advantages in the subset of Metra's graphics that the BBC uses instead of its own old ones. The improvement in the local North East forecasts may well be more a consequence of better presenters than anything else. So it's the old style all the way for me now.