80. Warm Front
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 June 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today will be fine. But wait: fine as in ‘OK’, fine as in ‘really rather good’, or fine as in ‘no precipitation’? When you’re a TV weather forecaster, you have to deal with the mismatch of your specialist vocabulary with that of the meteorological laypeople watching – as well as cover all the weather across a whole country, translate conditions into something the viewer can identify with, and warn people about cyclones without making them too panicked. Or not panicked enough to take sensible cyclone precautions. Nate Byrne, who presents the weather for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s News Breakfast, breezes in to shower us with meteorological knowledge.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/warm-front.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks to Canva for sponsoring the illusionist. In the 10 years since Canva began, it has |
| 0:08.3 | grown to offer services in over 100 languages. And Canva is freemium, so there is plenty available |
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| 0:25.1 | magic write and magic design, which use AI to help you with your first drafts, get you |
| 0:31.2 | through the creative block, whew, because it's easier to start from something than from |
| 0:36.6 | a blank page. I put in a few writing prompts and, well, if Canva learns to speak, I think |
| 0:43.4 | I can just hand over hosting this show to it entirely. Also, if you and your colleagues |
| 0:48.8 | are working together, your human colleagues, that is, you can design and collaborate with |
| 0:53.4 | Canva for teams. Right now, you can get a free 45 day extended trial when you go to Canva.me-illusionist. |
| 1:03.4 | That's C-A-N-V-A.me-slashillusionist for a free 45 day extended trial. Canva.me-illusionist. |
| 1:24.4 | This is The Allusionist, in which I, Helen Salzman, I'm Tippi Hedren in the Birds, and |
| 1:30.0 | languages the birds in the birds. How, how, how, get off me, how, how. Coming up in today's |
| 1:35.6 | show. We're all experts and all idiots at the same time. On with the show. |
| 1:42.6 | Actually, the forecast is secret. Here you go. I'm telling you. Don't tell anyone. |
| 1:56.7 | Can't promise. Alright. Partly cloudy chance of a shower gets you out of a world of |
| 2:02.6 | hatch. Don't tell anyone. Unless you're forecasting for a desert area in which case, chance |
| 2:08.8 | for a shower would be like a new story. We're true, true. But if you say a chance, you're |
| 2:14.0 | not promising too much, are you? But no, the thing is though, a chance for a shower actually |
| 2:18.3 | has meaning for a meteorologist. 30%, 40%, 50% chance for a shower. That is a meaningful |
| 2:25.4 | thing. I mean, here we're predicting the future. Also, you're forecasting for a given |
| 2:31.1 | area over a given time period. I don't know where you're about to be in 20 minutes' time. |
| 2:37.3 | I don't know if it is going to rain where you're going to be, but I know the area that |
... |
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