Presenting the weather is about telling a story, Gerald Fleming explains toDick Ahlstrom
Preparing a television weather forecast is a demanding business. The men and women who nightly present the weather on our screens make the predictions, organise the graphics and deliver it live, without a script.
Each show lasts only 90-120 seconds, but this can seem to stretch to infinity when everything is live, and with the possibility that something could go wrong. "It is a long time. You can die in two minutes," says Gerald Fleming, the meteorologist and weather presenter.
Fleming has been a familiar face for 16 years, telling us what the weather holds with a trademark wink. He is also the leader of Met Éireann's television-presentation team, overseeing colleagues, helping with training and liaising with RTÉ.
He joined the meteorological service in 1985, after completing a BSc in physics and an MSc in environmental radiation. There were few science-related jobs available at the time, but a friend decided to try Met Éireann, so Fleming did too. "I ended up in the met service partly by accident, but it has been very good," he says.
There is a dedicated radio studio at the service's headquarters, in Glasnevin, Dublin, but all the television work is done from a purpose-built facility at RTÉ's Montrose complex. "We work from a completely automatic studio," Fleming says. The presenters work on their own, with no producer, director or camera operator.
This was not always the case. During his first three years, the weather came from the same studio as the news broadcasts, so there was interaction and feedback from crew and other RTÉ staff. "In some ways it is more difficult now," he says, because the weather presenters are on their own in the studio.
There are 17 weather broadcasters, eight of them on television. Of these, five are meteorologists working on RTÉ 1; three are trained presenters on Network 2. The meteorologists spend a full day at the studio, organising their graphics and preparing what they are going to say on air for broadcasts that begin at 3 p.m.
The first job is to examine the current weather situation and the charts being output from the forecast models, such as Hirlam. "The office in Montrose is like a satellite of the station in Glasnevin," Fleming says. Forecasters have the same resources there as their colleagues in Glasnevin, and the Montrose systems can be updated with fresh weather data every hour.
Once the forecaster has a handle on what the weather is likely to do, the creative part of delivering a forecast comes into play. "In some ways the next step is the most important one. You have to try to make a story out of it," says Fleming. "That, to me, is the most important thing you have to do - what way are you going to present the story today?"
A simple string of facts would put a viewer off, he believes, so he tries to construct a central idea or theme, perhaps based on how cold, windy or sunny it might be. With the storyline in place, the forecaster begins to build graphics around it, using dedicated graphics software called Metacast Ultra.
The system is linked to the main forecast modelling and can deliver charts that reflect the forecast. The meteorologist uses a palette of choices, depending on what the storyline needs to say. We might see still or moving isobars if high or low pressure was the theme, or still or moving bands of rain if precipitation was the issue, says Fleming. "I have to try to choose what is appropriate for the day."
The forecaster is fully responsible for the visual aspect of the presentation. "We do all of our own graphic presentations. We structure the story and the graphics."
Surprisingly, the TV team tends to deliver their forecasts without formal scripts, using the graphics like cue cards to bring viewers through the story.
He no longer experiences stage fright at the thought of live presentations, although "it certainly is an issue for everybody starting off". By the same token, there is no audience available for feedback, although the presentation is more intimate because you appear in the viewer's living room, he says. "You have got to make the camera into a sympathetic audience."