The Weather Thread

We don't have immediate weather though. The closest we get are snow or thunder storms passing through, and the conditions for them are easily predicted and (apart from the immediate suspension of all public transport upon the confirmed sighting of a single snowflake) don't really cause much disruption.

Like you say, we don't get the extreme weather that the US does, and being much smaller and obsessed with the weather we get plenty of warning of potential problems.

Too bad there wasnt anything in place when this happened

Oh, we have lots of tornadoes (I'm sure I read somewhere that the UK has more recorded tornadoes than any other country), but they are always tiny, suddenly appear, last minutes and the normal level of damage is a few surprised garden gnomes. Occasionally they might knock a chimney over, which could potentially be lethal, but it's hardly extreme weather. Actual serious damage happens once in a blue moon, and even if you could get an advance warning message out, nobody in the UK would react (apart from to get their camera phones out) because tornado's 'don't cause damage' here.

Can the citizens access live radar?

This isn't the USA basically, the weather isn't hyped up like the local stations out there do. There's no 'doppler' its just your weatherman/weathergirl telling you the national or local forecast. Serious weather will be covered by the news channels and get a mention on the evening news. Partly because we're only a small island.....

All of Europe has substantially less severe weather coverage than the U.S., mostly because Europe gets a lot less severe weather than the U.S.

In the past twenty years, for instance, tornadoes in Europe have caused around 20 fatalities. In the same period, the U.S. has had more than 1600 tornado-related fatalities.

Many European broadcasters do give weather warnings, but they tend to be a lot less specific than U.S. ones. Here is an example of a special severe weather forecast aired during the 1 P.M. news in France:



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v302/az2si/france2-severewx-2013-1a_zps6657fc59.jpg

And yes, Europeans do have access to weather radar. Sometimes radar images are incorporated into television weather forecasts, as in this German example...



...but they're available 24/7 on the Internet. Here's a weather radar image for Slovenia, for example: http://www.eposavje.com/arhiv/images/2010/08/sport/radar_anim.gif

Well I was just asking some questions. And sorry but I disagree with your dismissive summation of all US weather tv meteorologists. The hours and hours of live coverage these people provide during severe weather outbreaks has saved many lives over the years. I've been in severe weather outbreaks where tornadoes are dropping out of the sky all around you. You may view it as hype, but if your life is in actual danger I want someone who knows what they are talking about on my screen with all the bells and whistles that are going to keep me and my family safe or at least give us a fighting chance. But everyone is entitled to their opinion.

You can't deny both coverage of weather and news is a lot more sensationalised over there than it is here?

I know the Europe doesnt have weather like the US, I just figured since you guys get alot of rain you can kind plan things better if you can pull up the radar on your phones or something. Thats all.

There's numerous weather radar services, but I don't know anybody who uses them as a matter of course.

The main weather issues we have in the UK are snow/cold - easily predicted, and rain/flooding - again, easily predicted. Flash or major flooding inevitably gets national coverage in news and weather (unless a former leader of a country in the southern hemisphere happens to die, in which case you're on your own), and if a snowflake dare drop inside the M25 then everybody hears all about it.

We have a reputation of always moaning about the weather in the UK - mainly because it's so boring and repetitive - we don't have dangerous or exciting weather. Just look at the recent coverage of a flood plain getting, well, flooded. You'd have thought it was Noah's second coming the way the media reacted.



Thing is, the rain we get that causes problems tends to be for a significant time - days or weeks, and we get plenty of warning. Live radar isn't much use when the entire country is under a single rain cloud.

http://home.vis-is.co.uk/data/weather.jpg

Well not really. I actually still respectfully disagree with that. Sorry. But there are literally hundreds of stations in the US. But to say that is how all tv weather is here, I actually disagree. Of course US tv is not as sedate as UK tv, so to your eyes it might seem to be sensationalism or hype. You have only a few sources of weather on tv there ITV, BBC and Ch4. US stations has stiff competition at the same time in the same market. I kinda liken our tv in someways to UK newspapers in some respects.

In Slovenia, whose position between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea makes it more susceptible to severe weather than most European countries, many people do use the online weather radar -- there is currently only one -- on a regular basis.