[BC] Weather on the 8's

[Kirk Harnack]

Bernie,

Mr. Jackson is actually asking about a different technology.  The 
Weather Channel (if you're watching on a bona-fide cable system) now 
gives a verbal read of your weather forecast, while showing graphics 
that depict the forecast.  The verbal read, though automated, sounds 
quite good.  A few older or smaller cable systems still have the gear 
that just inserts the forecast text.

The Weather Channel's tech is not clear to me.  I don't know if it's 
using phrase splicing (after parsing the zone forecast text) or if it's 
actually "reading" the text, but I strongly suspect the former.

Tom Churchill's Digital Weatherman service (www.digitalweatheman.com) 
was the first to do this.  Tom has recorded over 30,000 audio cuts from 
which his software chooses to splice together a listenable audio 
forecast, based on the zone forecast.  Tom also then splices the current 
conditions, either at the studio or from nearby weather reporting 
stations.  A typical forecast is here...
http://digitalweatherman.com/audio/web-wxdemo-wdtl.mp3

Mr. Jackson would like to know the wording of the individual phrases 
that are spliced to make an audio forecast.  This is something that's 
reasonably easy to backward-engineer. However, I doubt that The Weather 
Channel or Mr. Churchill would simply post or e-mail a list of their 
phrases since they're valuable intellectual property.

Best!

Kirk Harnack
Meteorologist




Bernie Courtney wrote:
> i couldn't tell you the last time i watched the weather channel, but I'm
> going to assume 'weather on the 8's' is still "your local forecast".  And
> the text they use comes from the national weather services' local forecast
> office for whatever area your viewing in (heres a link to all the local
> offices by state, once on the forecast offices page on the left side click
> on LOCAL FORECASTS, and then ZONE FORECAST PRODUCT.  that more or less (with
> a little parsing) is what they are using.  As far as i know that info is
> manually typed in by a meteorologist at the local NWS office and dont have a
> master list of words they can choose from, at least for that product, others
> like the hourly update w/ conditions do always use the same phrases.
> 
> hope this helps
> 
> Bernie
> 
> On 12/1/05, JJisCool <jjiscool at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>I am doing a project for school and am looking for a list of all the
>>phrases
>>used in like weather.com's weather on the 8's or the digital weatherman or
>>any of those types of weather programs that assemble weather forecasts on
>>the fly.
>>
>>Can anybody point me to a list of those phrases?
>>
>>JJ Jackson
>>PennState