On this side of the Atlantic, the television era began for meteorology in 1936. On November 3rd that year, the world's first television weather charts were displayed on BBC television for a full six minutes, while an anonymous hand pointed out the isobars and a disembodied voice read the detailed forecast to the accompaniment of light orchestral music. The experiment - for such it was - lasted only a few weeks on that occasion, but the results were encouraging enough for the powers that be to decide that the weather chart should become a regular daily feature of television.
Early 1954 saw the appearance on screen for the first time of a live presenter - who in the case of the BBC was a professional meteorologist called George Cowling. Here in Ireland the first television weather-person was George Callaghan, who presented the inaugural television forecast on the newly established Teilifis Eireann in early January, 1962.
The nightly forecast has been presented by Met Eireann meteorologists ever since. Nearly all the television forecasts are live and unscripted. The weather person does not, as is sometimes thought, "read" the forecast in the same way as the newscaster reads the news, but must decide beforehand what is to be said, and then "ad-lib", straight into the camera. It has been found that this, combined with the professional meteorologist's expert knowledge of the weather situation, is the best way to get the message across clearly and convincingly - although it is by no means an easy thing to do.
In the United States, most television channels employ their own meteorologists. As with many aspects of life in the New World, their performance exhibits a great deal more razzmatazz than suits our taste on this side of the Atlantic. Here, so far, we have tended to play it straight, although as you may have noticed from your Irish Times on Saturday, this era may be coming to an end. RTE has plans, it seems, to change to an arrangement whereby the basic weather information will continue to be prepared by Met Eireann, but the on-screen presentation will be by non-meteorologist presenters.
The closing scenes in this drama of the weather will be poignant ones for Irish meteorologists. Many a nostalgic sigh will heave as Gerald Fleming, a tasteful tear glistening in his winking eye, exits screen right with some latter-day equivalent of the words of Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock:
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
I am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two.