Although Ireland's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest did not do well in Copenhagen, our country fared better in a television competition of a different kind in Paris at around the same time.
On May 11th this year, one of Met Eireann's RTE weather broadcasts was judged to be the best presentation from among a large number of similar entries from all over Europe. In a very close finish, a recording of Gerald Fleming's farming forecast, originally broadcast on RTE on Sunday, February 4th, just pipped TV2 Denmark's Peter Tanev to win a prestigous trophy of Norwegian pewter.
The television era began for meteorology in 1936 when the first weather maps appeared on BBC TV. An anonymous hand would point out the fronts and isobars on the hand-drawn chart, while a disembodied voice read the detailed forecast to the accompaniment of tasteful, light music.
By the time Telefis Eireann arrived in the early 1960s, however, the Irish forecaster was in full view standing beside a pair of boards assembled like a sash window. The weather maps were drawn on the boards in felt-tipped pen: having carefully explained the details of the "Today" chart, the forecaster would "open the window", so to speak, on tomorrow's weather by pushing the first board up and out of view to expose the second to the camera.
Techniques in both countries, and indeed throughout the world, have improved unrecognisably since then. Today's weather graphics prepared by Met Eireann forecasters use a sophisticated suite of computer programs custom-designed by Metcast Ultra, a Norwegian software company.
Such a system must be able to take the charts of pressure, rainfall, cloud, wind and temperature produced by the computer in the forecasting office and translate them to the television screen. It must allow the forecaster to edit the charts where necessary, adjusting and correcting them in the light of his or her experience, and it must allow for animated sequences.
It must be able to incorporate weather satellite pictures, radar images and weather observations, and display them all in a way which is both clear and pleasing to the eye. And the system must be fast and easy to use, allowing the forecaster to assemble quickly and efficiently the two dozen charts or thereabouts needed to illustrate each nightly forecast.
The presentations in Paris were judged on their meteorological content and on their creative use of the graphics system to tell the weather story in a way likely to appeal to television viewers.