WEATHER FOR DAILY AND WEEKLY PAPERS

The Skywatch Weather Center can provide graphics and text for traditional newsprint publications, whether you publish daily or weekly. Our staff of meteorologists and graphic artists can design layouts that you would want to see in your publication. This page shows the type of elements we might include in a daily newspaper. You can look at JPG examples of actual daily and weekly layouts, by  clicking here.
 
 

U.S. Maximum Temperature Map, Color

National Weather

The Skywatch Weather Center provides daily maps of forecast high temperatures, forecast low temperatures, and actual weather. These maps are updated twice a day, so that you get the most recent information whether you go to press in the morning or evening. One of these maps will be the center of attention on your weather page. A verbal description of the weather affecting the nation usually accompanies the map, and describes the dynamic weather patterns across the country.

Local Forecast Products

Much of the information that shows up on a weather page is local or regional information. The most important feature is a 5 Day Forecast or 7 Day Forecast, which gives weather conditions and high and low temperatures for the readership area of the newspaper. A Pittsburgh newspaper reader will expect to see a local weather forecast for Pittsburgh and vicinity, with regional information from the tri-state area (Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio).

Daily newspapers typically run a 5 Day Forecast, which is updated each day that the paper is printed. A weekly publication, on the other hand, usually presents a 7 Day Forecast, which is the only information available until the next issue is published, after a week. Most readers realize that the first few days of these multiday forecasts are the most accurate, as forecast information becomes less reliable the further you go into the future.


Regional Outlook

While the U.S. map has tremendous eye appeal, it cannot provide you with an accurate forecast for any specific location. The data smoothing necessary to produce an esthetically pleasing map of the continental United States does not allow for enough detail in any specific area. The Regional Outlook map provides the detail you want for specific cities in your region. A verbal description of the weather gives a thumbnail sketch of what weather to expect over the next 12 to 24 hours. Browse through the example weather pages to see additional methods of displaying regional forecasts.
 
 


National Cities
Business travellers want detail on the weather for specific travel destinations. They can get this from the AROUND THE NATION listing of cities. This product tabulates weather conditions and high and low forecast temperatures, "today" and "tomorrow", for up to 160 major U.S. cities. Usually, this detailed list is used when 1/2 page or more is devoted to the weather page. It can take up considerable space, even when rendered in a small font. Skywatch Weather page layouts will match up column lengths and the number of cities to meet your needs. You get to choose which cities appear in your paper. 

Many people in the reading area of a newspaper are planning trips on any given day, so the national city list gives them an idea of the current weather and a forecast for the cities they expect to visit. Even if their specific destination is not listed, some major city within 50 to 100 miles will be included, providing an indication of the weather that can be expected.

An alternative presentation of available data includes actual high and low temperatures and the precipitation amount for "yesterday", along with a forecast of sky conditions, high and low temperatures for the current day.

Local Site Statistics
 
 
 The Almanac gives all sorts of local weather and climatological data for a specific locale. The weather junkie who thrives on statistics gets recharged on the information tabulated here. Included are a summary of the temperatures for the preceding day, such as high, low and mean temperatures, the normal for the day. During winter, we'll report a wind chill temperature and the heating degree-days. Summertime that changes to "feel-like" temperatures and cooling degree-days. Another section reports the amounts of precipitation for the day, month and year, along with a comparison with normal conditions. Sunshine amounts, sunrise and sunset times, moonrise and moonset times are all available. If your local is affected by high winds, the maximum sustained winds and peak wind gusts can be a regular feature of the complete Almanac listings.
 The Phases of the Moon commonly appear in the Almanac portion of the weather page. The normal method of listing the next four phases, along with the date on which they occur, means that the pictures rotate on a biweekly basis throughout the year.
 Regional Highs and Lows cover cities and towns of interest in the states surrounding your city. These temperatures are the actual highs and lows for the previous day, as recorded at National Weather Service reporting locations. The list of cities is more extensive than is available on the National Cities list for the states in the region. The cities shown on the Regional Outlook map also show up on this list, so that yesterday's actual temperatures at a specific city from the list can be compared with today's forecast high and low temperatures on the map.
 Marine Forecasts give a forecast of wind and weather affecting stretches of the coast. Wind speeds in these forecasts are given in knots rather than miles per hour, because nautical enthusiasts are most likely to read and use this information. The height of waves (or "seas") are noted in feet. Most mariners are aware of how combinations of wind direction and strength will affect wave action, and use these forecasts to avoid conditions beyond the capabilities of the boat (and its captain).
 Tide Tables are a natural adjunct to the marine forecast, for newspapers located in coastal cities. Swimming, fishing, surfing, sailing and other water activities are affected by tides. These tide tables are always created specifically for the newspaper's area of interest. Daily papers typically carry "today and "tomorrow" data, while weekly papers cover the full week.

Other Features

Additional products are available to display information such as Air Pollution indices, Pollen or Allergen counts, summertime Tanning Index, Telephone Access Lines for local weather information, the National and State high and low Temperature Extremes, hourly temperatures and relative humidity for "yesterday" in tables or graph format, and World Temperatures at cities around the world.

Color and Black & White examples are accessible from this webpage. As these examples are rendered in JPG format, for rapid downloading by your browser, these graphics do not display as well as the actual products.

 Weather Page Examples

Skywatch Weather Center can develop a comprehensive weather package to meet your needs. Contact us for more information, and to arrange for the download of production quality examples. Call us at 1-800-SKYWATCH (1-800-759-9282).
 

For more information contact our webmaster or call us at 1-800-SKYWATC(H)  1-800-759-9282

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