On September 22, Fall Equinox occurred in the northern hemisphere and Spring Equinox in the southern. The date certainly defines a change of season, but more than anything, it marks the time for ”more of everything”. An exciting time for all of us who love weather, and certainly an interesting and challenging time for all broadcasters engaged in weather content programming and particularly on-air weather forecasting.
If we start with the northern hemisphere, on the one hand, the typical summer season, characterized by warm days with afternoon thunderstorms is on the decline, but nonetheless, the hurricane season is going strong; with the extratropical system Karl speeding across the Northern Atlantic at record speeds, about to hit western Norway. In the more equatorial parts of the Atlantic, at least two systems are showing signs of potentially developing into tropical storms or hurricanes.
In Northern Europe and North America, the winter season is already setting in with the first winter storm already behind us. On September 13, Yellowstone National Park, in the northern US, had a snowstorm and surprised summer tourists with several inches of snow.
In Southern Europe, on the other hand, already distressed areas of Turkey saw devastating flooding last week. Meanwhile, the last beats of summer caused the highest September temperatures ever in Spain and Portugal. In India, the withdrawal of the southwest monsoon is very late this year, bringing heavy rains and flooding over the northwestern part of the country. And if we turn our eyes to the Southern Hemisphere, in Australia, we have seen record-breaking rainfall with flooding in the states of Victoria and New South Wales.
In my last blog post, I discussed how the tropical season had become very active, and while Fall Equinox marks a global change in weather patterns, statistics show that the frequency of tropical weather systems almost corresponds to a bell curve with the center being right at this time of year. Thus, the tropical weather season is far from over.
Rapidly Changing Weather Patterns Require the Right Tools
In sum, now is an incredibly active time of year; a vast variety of different weather conditions are at play with extremely complex meteorological patterns and climatological anomalies requiring the broadcasters’ attention.
With the rapidly changing weather patterns, having access to high-value, high-accuracy and high-resolution weather data and visualization tools that enable compelling storytelling in seconds is key.
This is where decades of experience in ingesting and analyzing weather and geoscience data from all types of data providers and from all types of organizations is crucial. The ChyronHego Metacast team has an unparallelled network of data providers and long expertise in creating professional weather templates that allow broadcasters to create unique content for their audiences.
Earlier this month at IBC Show in Amsterdam, ChyronHego demonstrated how Metacast is now integrated with the CAMIO Universe so news operations can instantly access high-value data and carry out template fulfillment and produce continuously updated weather content by the touch of a button.
Broadcasters worldwide are embracing the ease with which the weather desk can now be integrated with the rest of the news operation.
Until next time, stay weather aware and weather prepared!
Karl Eggestad, Global Sales Director for Metacast, ChyronHego
