Is weather forecasting the new rock'n'roll?

[SNOWYLAD]

I ask this question because I have noticed a trend over the last few years that seems to tie in with the rise of social media.

 

Many years ago the weather forecast was shown after the news every night, and because it was a forecast for the next 24-48 hours it was usually fairly accurate. 

 

Fast forward a few years and we are now in a era where everyone wants information at their fingertips and the media have pages and TV to fill, couple that with our national obsession with the weather, and all of a sudden, the humble weather forecaster has a new audience to entertain, and each forecaster needs to better the other to ensure they have a suitable fan base.

 

A quick look through Facebook or Twitter will highlight this fact, numerous forecasters all battling for 'likes' and 'retweets' all searching for the next 'extreme' weather event in the next ten days to excite their followers and attract media attention, yet we are always told that 10 days away is in FI, yet these 'professional' forecasters are more than happy to put their names against some of the complete tripe I have seen tweeted and facebook'd this Winter.

 

The winter so far has been a fairly standard UK winter, a real mix of weather, yet if you were to believe these forecasters by now we should have been blown away, flooded or snowed in, or maybe all 3 if you were really unlucky! 

 

Some of these forecasters are quite well known, and really should know better and hopefully they will soon learn not to speculate about forecasts in 7 to 10 days time, and spend more time on their forecasts for the here and now,  rather than chasing the fame and bright lights that social media now offers to your once humble weather forecaster.