Guidelines on Weather Broadcasting and the Use of Radio for the Delivery of Weather Information

One of the principal roles of the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (hereinafter NMHS) is to provide to the general public, and also to more specialised users, reliable and accurate weather products and services. These products and services help to ensure the safety and protection of people and of goods at times of occurrence of extreme weather phenomena, but also assist in the efficient and economic pursuit of business and of the domestic activity of citizens engaged in their own particular areas of pursuit and responsibility. Weather products and services are, of necessity, subject to certain variability, and they also follow the evolution of weather parameters with time. They are highly perishable goods. Consequently, they must be communicated and distributed in a timely manner to the users and to the public. To ensure that this information is received in the optimum manner it is necessary that the public not only be able to take in and understand the message, but that they be attracted the product and have sufficient interest and motivation to consult it, read it, listen to or look at it. Thus, the manner of communicating, the choice of the information supports used, the duration of the bulletin, and the balance between ordinary language and technical terms used represent significant factors in determining the success or otherwise of the process of communication between the weather presenter and his or her public. The main text of Part I of these guidelines deals with the human elements of communication in Chapters 2 to 9. Chapter 10 examines some of the communications hardware and how this is developing. In addition to the main text, a template for WMO training courses in weather presentation is provided in Appendix 1