Learning English

Darren
My name is Darren Bett: I'm a weather presenter at the BBC Weather Centre.

Rob
Hello Darren. First of all, how long have you been presenting the weather for - and forecasting it?

Darren
Well I joined the Met Office in September 1989, straight from university. I was one of the first graduates to go straight into forecasting. I had quite a few months of initial training and then my first job was at Glasgow Weather Centre in Scotland. I've also worked at the Met Office headquarters and at Leeds Weather Centre in northern England and that was where I first started presenting on television and radio and then I joined the team at the BBC Weather Centre in 1997, to launch the 24-hour news channel.

Rob
So you've seen quite a few changes since then I'm sure?

Darren
A lot of changes, particularly in terms of technology. Forecasting-wise, when I was at Glasgow Weather Centre, there were no radars covering Scotland at all, and the radars are what we use to show us where the rain is falling across the country. So we didn't have that information back then. Satellite pictures, which we rely on more and more now, they were every three hours at best and on a fax machine, not on a computer. And computer models were run less often and they were much less detailed, and we couldn't forecast as far ahead as we do now.

Rob
Let's talk about today - and what's the most challenging and difficult aspect of your job?

Darren
Well I guess managing time, both in terms of fitting in all the broadcasts that we have to do, both in the day or during the night, and in terms of time that I have to present a forecast.

Rob
And what about the language you have to use – do you have to think carefully about the words you choose?

Darren
Yes, that's become more and more important, particularly where we're using more and more technical weather terms to describe what's happening now with the weather and what the forecast is. And in forecasts of severe weather I have to be very careful not to be alarmist, this could lead to people making the wrong or unnecessary decisions so there has to be a balanced, professional and clear delivery. And great care has to be taken when talking about uncertainty. For example, if we had a band of rain that was moving northwards, it may move further north and it could turn to snow and this may be just over the hills but it might fall in towns and cities. And we also use probability to describe uncertainty and the most likely outcome and also in the describing the tracks of storms or hurricanes or typhoons around the world. The track may change daily and this could have a huge impact to different parts of the world.

Rob
Well let's look to the future now and think about weather forecasting in the future. What do you think might change?

Darren
One area of forecasting that I think is likely to become more important is space weather. Now over the past few years we've already seen geomagnetic storms from the sun leading to power outages in millions of homes around the world. And as our reliance on satellites grows, so forecasting the weather in space is going to be more and more important, and with that mobile technology, social media has seen a change in how people get their weather forecast and no doubt there will be further technological changes to come and the future could bring the potential for virtual weather presenters; I hope this doesn't happen as I do actually enjoy my job but it's the biggest changes that are likely to arrive are due to changes in technology. At the BBC Weather Centre we present a forecast up to ten days ahead, the future may mean the viewer or listener will be able to get a forecast even further ahead than that.

Rob
Climate change is something we've all heard about: is there evidence that the climate is changing?

Darren
There's been some research done by the Met Office that shows current global average temperatures are highly unlikely in a world without human influence on the climate and human influence has also made breaking the current UK temperature record about ten times more likely. Now, 2014 may be the warmest [year] on record across the globe, figures are still coming in, but in the UK in 2014 was the warmest on record and eight out of the last ten warmest years in the UK have occurred since 2002. Now as a forecast and a presenter, how I report the changes in climate and severe weather events that could bring, may be the next biggest challenge I could face.

Rob
Fantastic. Well Darren thank you very much for speaking to us and giving us all that information.