Further Ahead: Ten Day Forecasts on BBC Weather
Post categories: Weather
| 11:15 UK time, Friday, 6 July 2012
BBC Weather forecast page for Birmingham showing the 'Further ahead' button
Just over two weeks ago I posted a blog about the major upgrade we made to the BBC Weather website, introducing new hourly forecasts for UK locations and three hourly forecasts for International locations.
Yesterday we introduced extended forecasts, providing ten day forecasts for all our locations.
When you select a forecast location on BBC Weather you will see the forecast for today and the next four days in the tabs across the top of the page. Above the 'Find a Forecast' box you will now see a 'Further ahead' button which will take you to the following 5 days forecasts (i.e. into next week).
You can go back to the first five days by clicking the same button which now says 'First five days'.
After selecting the ‘Further Ahead’ button you see the five day forecast into the following week. The ‘First five days’ button will take you back to the previous week
You will also notice that the forecast data granularity decreases over time. In the UK we have hourly data for the first two days, which then decreases to three hourly forecasts for the next three days, and then day/night forecasts for the final five days of the 10 day forecast.
The day/night forecasts are shown as ranges – for the day’s high temperatures and night’s low temperatures.
You may also notice that the further ahead the forecast, for example days nine and ten, the ranges can be quite wide and day/night temperatures may even overlap as shown in the example above.
Whilst this may seem quite strange it is just a reflection of the confidence levels of the forecast that far into the future.
The nearer the forecast we can provide more granular and confident predictions, but further ahead the uncertainly increases. We hope that despite the uncertainty of the further ahead forecasts that you still find them valuable and helpful. I look forward to your feedback and comments.
Jo Wickremasinghe is the Head of Product for BBC Weather in BBC Future Media
Comment number 1.
At 13:25 6th Jul 2012, Josh Tumath wrote:Great! I was hoping this feature would be launched soon. But after checking the weather for my holiday in Turkey, now I wish I never looked. The temperature could be up to 50°C on the 15th! At least chances are that it won't reach that high.
By the way, since there's a lot of space where you show the forecast for both day and night, you could show the lowest temperature during the day as well. That data might be more useful, since the forecast is more vague.
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Comment number 2.
At 13:43 6th Jul 2012, David wrote:Will the extended range forecasts be coming to the mobile versions (https://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/mobile/forecast/8 etc)?
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Comment number 3.
At 15:53 6th Jul 2012, Matt Fletcher wrote:Looks great, five days has always seemed a bit mean.
But what's with the / in the temperature ranges? Surely a hyphen would be a better choice. It's almost like saying 12 or 18 degrees, but not somewhere in between.
But I'm nitpicking, keep up the good work.
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Comment number 4.
At 21:31 6th Jul 2012, Lou_Lou73 wrote:I like the new online weather searches, the timed display and the new 10 day feature are nice improvements.
But what has happened to the digital (TV) text weather service? at a time of improvement to the delivery of weather information by the BBC in some areas why has this service regressed. It was possible to view a video forecast at any point during the day via TV but this service seems to have gone, which is a great loss and seems giant leap backwards in service delivery. Disappointed weather watcher.
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Comment number 5.
At 13:40 9th Jul 2012, mark wrote:is this weather going get better
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Comment number 6.
At 17:59 9th Jul 2012, Helpmexico wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 7.
At 18:50 9th Jul 2012, Helpmexico wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 8.
At 11:32 10th Jul 2012, Jo Wickremasinghe wrote:Thanks for your comments. In response to a few specific questions you raised:
davidwalters - We will introduce the extended forecast to our refreshed mobile site which we are currently working on. Bear with us!
Lou_Lou73 - my colleague Steve Herrmann wrote a blog post explaining the changes to our Red Button services, which included the removal of the Weather video forecasts. You can read about these changes to Red Button and our plans to build our next generation interactive TV services here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2012/06/closing_the_news_multiscreen_on_red_button.html
And finally
mark - unfortunately I can't tell you when the weather will improve, but keep coming back to BBC Weather to get the latest forecast and also take a look at the Monthly Outlook here https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2635167
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Comment number 9.
At 12:55 10th Jul 2012, Jon Davies wrote:Love the general approach to weather forecast information on the BBC. However on the broadcast side I don't like the current trend on BBC TV of not showing the weather sequence for beyond 4pm for the following day. What is the point of looking at the weather forecast for tomorrow and not knowing if its going to rain at 6pm? Can anyone advise whether this is policy or just a mistake. If its policy who do I need to persuade that its not working?
See https://www.hot-bubble.com/2012/07/bbc-weather-forecast-missing-the-mark/ for a better explanation of what I mean.
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Comment number 10.
At 21:39 10th Jul 2012, Mr Maff wrote:Just a quick comment that the weather page no longer works with Isle of Man postcodes:
IM1, IM2, IM3, IM4
:(
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Comment number 11.
At 11:44 15th Aug 2012, williamro wrote:Good to see that you are now giving forecasts for 5-10 days. Can you please explain further the ranges in temperature given? Does for example 15/30 mean that during that period maximum temperature might be 15 or it might be 30? Or does it mean that during the period the maximum will range from 15 to 30 depending on the time of day or night? It would be helpful to know the expected max & min at day and night. I realise that forecasting so far in advance is not an exact science and thank you for your efforts to provide the best info available.
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Comment number 12.
At 11:00 30th Sep 2012, mart wrote:I have a Samsung s3 . However when I use the bbc weather site (not mobile) it works ok until I select extended forecast to get the 10 day forecast . The icons vanish from the screen and I only get the 12hr readings and not days 6-10 readings. Can this be fixed or can the 10 day forecast be added to the mobile version
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