BBC weather glitch shows 13k mph winds in London, 404℃ in Nottingham
- Reference: 1728587714
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/10/10/bbc_weather_error_predicts_lows/
- Source link:
Visit the BBC's online or in-app weather forecasts as of writing, and you'll see some startling data being forecasted across the globe: Hurricane force winds appear to be battering cities everywhere - including this vulture's home in the US - where they're forecasted to routinely exceed 10,000 mph today and as far into the future as next Wednesday.
[1]
The forecast for Louisville, KY, from the BBC. Gonna be hot and windy. - Click to enlarge
In cities where winds aren't a hundred times as strong as Hurricane Milton, which recently passed over Florida, the forecasted lows are reaching nearly as high as the surface of Mercury. Highs, mysteriously, are still appropriate.
For those curious, the fastest-ever recorded wind on Earth was captured in 1996 at Barrow Island off the coast of Australia. That gust, a blistering [2]253 miles per hour , puts in perspective just how damn fast and destructive a 10k+ mph gust would be - much less sustained for days.
[3]
London's deadly weather won't include excess heat, but that wind is going to bite! - Click to enlarge
"Oops, don't be alarmed by some of our @bbcweather app data this morning," BBC meteorologist and weather presenter Simon King [4]said at around 6:30 AM local time. "Be assured there won't be 14,408mph winds, hurricane force winds or overnight temperatures of 404°C."
[5]Starlink was offered for free to those hit by Hurricane Helene. It is not entirely free
[6]US govt hiding top hurricane forecast model sparks outrage after deadly Helene
[7]Severe solar storm could disrupt power, communications
[8]Verizon outages across US as hurricane recovery continues
As of writing, it's going on 1630 in London, and the issue still isn't resolved everywhere. Some cities - London among them - are beginning to show signs of a return to normal, though.
"We're aware of an issue with our third-party supplier, which means our Weather app and website are wrongly predicting hurricane wind speeds everywhere," a BBC spokesperson told The Register . "That is incorrect and we apologise. We're working with our supplier to fix this as soon as possible.
While the BBC didn't name names in its email to us, a [9]story published by the news service pointed the blame at DTN, a US-based meteorological forecasting company that supplies data for the BBC's weather app and website.
[10]
DTN didn't respond to our requests for comment, but did admit to the BBC that there was an issue, adding that it had no estimate for how long a fix would take.
[11]
Live forecasts from the BBC aren't affected, so you might want to turn on the tube to get your weather, or just go somewhere else entirely, until this whole thing blows over - hopefully slower than forecasted. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/10/10/louisville-end-of-world-bbc-forecast.jpg
[2] https://twitter.com/NWSCharlestonSC/status/1116129894541533184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1116129894541533184%7Ctwgr%5Ee796a00957af41129d209f0bb4e7cfb45f720c12%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fca.news.yahoo.com%2Fexperts-didnt-trust-earths-fastest-085655765.html
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/10/10/london-end-of-world-bbc-forecast.jpg
[4] https://x.com/SimonOKing/status/1844247582220091844
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/08/free_starlink_hurricane_helene/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/01/government_hurricane_forecast_secrecy/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/09/g4_solar_storm/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/verizon_outages_report_us/
[9] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kjrp2rngzo
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZwhOiR54Ytz0ztFCF7VLIgAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZwhOiR54Ytz0ztFCF7VLIgAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
IT'S A CONSPIRACY!
Kamala is using her weather machine to attack the UK, just like she did in Florida. Soon jackbooted American FEMA thugs will show up to haul you all off to reeducation camps!
Sadly, this appears to be what Republicans would happily believe.
It was fun to send my friend in Florida a screenshot of the BBC weather app showing hurricane force winds in Covent Garden this morning (he’d already told me his family had all weathered their real hurricane just fine).
RIP Michael Fish.
"Be assured"
For those of us who remember Michael Fish telling us much the same I'm not sure we should be.
Only 13k?
That’s just a light breeze!
According to the BBC weather app and website, wind speeds were hitting 19035 mph in my neck of the woods this morning. (SW Scotland)
Ya big bunch of soft sassenach jessies…
Re: Only 13k?
There were a handful of '404' degree temperatures forecast, too...
Re: Only 13k?
And yet that temperature was never actually found.
That's not "Hurricane Force"
"Be assured there won't be 14,408mph winds, hurricane force winds..."
Hurricane force is ≥ 73 mph and while there is no upper limit on force 12; I think being > Mach 18 is into a while new realm where everything down to bedrock would be scoured off (and the bedrock would be eroded pretty quickly).
Maybe someone messed up the data feed to it was read as being multiples of the speed of sound rather than, the correct, km/h and was a bit too clever is automatically converting.[1]
[1] This is the site where you can turn it up to 11.
Re: That's not "Hurricane Force"
Yes, but with " 404℃ lows forecasted for Nottingham tomorrow " sound will travel at 1,150 mph there ... and so 14,408mph is just a Mach 14 wind gust really ... plenty of folks were born in a cross-fire hurricane like this, and then lived to be raised by a toothless, bearded hag just fine AFAIK!
Neptune is jealous
Meanwhile, enquiring minds want to know why the BBC reports wind speeds in mph rather than kph.
Re: Neptune is jealous
Probably because we use miles for distance everywhere in the uk. All the road signs are in miles, speed limits in miles per hour etc. we but petrol in litres but still use miles per imperial gallon (4.54 litres not the us version) for fuel consumption.
And the met office weather data uses the same units.
Before you say anything it works for us….
Re: Neptune is jealous
Miles per gallon will be obsolete before it is changed. I do find it frustrating when I can't configure systems to give me distances over a mile in miles but shorter distances in meters.
Re: Neptune is jealous
You can select either...
Re: Neptune is jealous
Enquiring Minds want to know why it is not in metres per second.
What is this 'hours' nonsense, doesn't seem like an SI unit to me..
Just a storm in a teacup.
See title.
Re: Just a storm in a teacup.
...or a storm in Sidcup!
The BBC weather forecast was right, it was the planet that glitched.