New Weather

The institution that is the BBC weather forecast has, from today, changed into an odd 3D affair. Gone is this sort of thing:

Now we have an altogether less friendly, more scientific-looking 3D map that can be panned around and zoomed in on, a little like this:

Now, I can appreciate the need to move forward - since the computer generated images were introduced 20 years ago, computers have got a smidge more powerful, and so presentation can be improved, but there's a couple of problems, as I see it.

First of all, it's a bit ugly. Look at those numbers in boxes - why so square? Look at the time and day - why so square and garish? Look at the surface of the country - why so grey? I for one liked the nice green colour we use to have...

But secondly, and more importantly, Scotland gets a bum deal with this new presentation system. When the viewpoint flies across the country, not too bad, but most of the time the view is a zoomed-out version of the above, meaning that people in the southeast of England get a fantastic scale displayed - you could probably spot your own street in Kent - but north of Manchester it's a different story, and when you get to the far north of Scotland you're looking at maybe 7 pixels.

So, while I admire the BBC Weather department's embrace with new presentation technology, it's currently a bit arse.