Met Office
Printable version E-mail this to a friend

Met Office launches online weather game

Met Office launches online weather game

News Release issued by the COI News Distribution Service on 22 August 2011

The Met Office, in collaboration with the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge, is launching an online weather game to investigate how we respond to different representations of probabilities, particularly for use in presenting weather forecasts.

The weather game project, led by Liz Stephens from the University of Bristol, will run for one month and aims to be the largest and most comprehensive study into the understanding of how weather probabilities are communicated.

Liz said “It’s not easy to communicate probabilities and previous studies have only been carried out on a relatively small scale. By presenting this in the format of an online game, we hope to learn how using probabilities can improve the presentation of weather forecasts.”

Players of the game will help Brad, our ice cream man, run his business by deciding on where and when he should sell his ice cream depending on the weather over a four week period.

The weather game uses a number of ways of presenting probabilistic forecasts. This will give us important feedback and information from the public about the most effective ways of presenting our weather forecasts.

Ken Mylne, Met Office Ensemble Forecasting Manager, said “We are constantly looking at ways to improve the way we communicate our forecasts to the public. By playing this game participants will help us to understand the best way of communicating probability in weather forecasts.”

The weather game takes approximately 5 minutes to complete and is available from www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/weather-game. Each day players of the game will be entered into a prize draw to win a Met Office t-shirt.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

The Met Office is the UK’s National Weather Service, providing 24x7 world-renowned scientific excellence in weather, climate and environmental forecasts and severe weather warnings for the protection of life and property.

For further information contact
Met Office press office +44 (0)1392 886655 or e-mail: pressoffice@metoffice.gov.uk
University of Cambridge, Tom Kirk, +44 (0)1223 766205 thomas.kirk@admin.cam.ac.uk
University of Bristol, Philippa Walker, +44 (0)117 928 7777 philippa.walker@bristol.ac.uk

Contacts:

NDS Enquiries
Phone: For enquiries please contact the issuing dept
ndsenquiries@coi.gsi.gov.uk

Press Office
Phone: 01392 886655
pressoffice@metoffice.gov.uk

Spotlight on women at Serco – Anita’s story