Meet ireann overcoming complaints about bad spelling, presentation and fashion

Weather presenters speak too fast, forecasters wear black on St Patrick’s Day, and a lack of formality in greeting viewers are some of the complaints the Met ireann noted last year about its TV and radio forecasting service.

The meteorological service received 41 complaints last year about broadcast coverage, with 13 complaints in August, nearly half related to misspellings of the word lightning.

The first complaint this year said an astrologer was clearly competent with good presentation skills but had a habit of speaking too fast.

A month later it was a similar story, with viewers saying it wasn’t a race and the forecast was very important to a lot of people.

In March, one astrologer of St Patrick’s Day clothing color choices was met with disappointment in one complaint. Black! Black! Black! Really, what’s with green, the only day of the year to celebrate our culture, they wrote.

Informal greetings such as hai were also criticized by viewers, who said they were very impersonal.

There comes a time when fortune-tellers greet TV viewers with good morning/afternoon/evening, they wrote.

Eight separate complaints were recorded about forecasts misspelling the word lightning as lightning, according to a note released under Freedom of Information. One message said: This is not a big mistake but just sends the wrong message from you guys. Hope you are not traumatized by my trivial comments. Keep up the good work!

Others say meteorologists, of all people, should know the difference between the word lightning meaning to make lighter and lightning weather events.

For how many days, weeks, months, years or decades these horrific basic errors are broadcast to the nation every time we have a thunderstorm? they asked.

Later that month several viewers wrote again to ask the weather forecasters to make sure they slowed down when giving the weather.

We parents find it hard to understand, wrote one viewer, while another said their 90-year-old mother-in-law was struggling to keep up.

In September one viewer wondered if the static noise in the background of radio forecasts was intentional.

I thought it odd that there was no apology for such annoyance like normal procedure, they said. I noticed that it was still going on and now I think it was intentional.

It’s the frenzied noise that overtakes the fortune teller and that makes me reach for a headache pill.

The fortune teller blocked part of the map of Ireland at the time of presentation also raised in one letter from the west coast.

Is it possible to show less UK and more of our country and west coast, RT is US national broadcaster, writes one viewer

A mark on a map showing Ireland’s main urban centers including Letterkenny, not Derry, is marked in two separate complaints.

Someone said Derry is five times bigger and it’s disturbing to see the city of Derry consistently marginalized in terms of visuals.

Another complainant took the time to send an official letter with five suggestions on how to review the RT weather forecast format.

The person whose name has been edited says the weather can sometimes seem like a fashion show and also laments the use of the Beaufort Scale to measure wind speed, which they find old-fashioned and meaningless to most people.

They also reasoned why relative humidity was rarely mentioned, the lines delineating political boundaries on maps, and the inappropriate use of language such as settling and developing, which means different things to each person.

Settling could mean continued drought for many farmers, they said. Such expressions are judgments of value and have no place in what should be a presentation based on scientific facts.

Asked about the complaint, communications meteorologist Bonnie Diamond said: At the Met ireann we have a team of skilled meteorologists who as part of their role present daily weather bulletins on RT TV and Radio.

All meteorologists receive regular broadcast training from RT which includes voice training, presentation and communication skills.

Both the Met ireann and RT are proud of our team of forecasters who keep the public informed about the weather in Ireland helping to keep them, their families, homes and businesses safe.