Posted on: Sunday, August 29, 2004

AFTER DEADLINE

By Anne Harpham
Advertiser Senior Editor

Thanks to our new presses in Kapolei, color now pops out throughout the pages of The Advertiser. That includes the daily Weather Report.

It's made for a better, more pleasing look to the Weather Report package, and we hope you'll agree it's made the maps and charts easier to read.

In addition to daily forecasts, the Weather Report, usually found on Page A4 in the main news section, includes data on Honolulu temperatures, precipitation, surf-height forecasts, tide heights for O'ahu, Maui, Kaua'i, the Big Island, Moloka'i and Lana'i, and sun and moon phases.

The package also includes high and low temperatures for Mainland cities as well as major world cities.

The current Mainland map gives readers the same cities and their temperatures as the previous black-and-white map.

But now, the color, with a multicolor key that ranges from light purple (cold) to red (hot), gives a quick sense of temperature ranges across the country.

Color also enhances the Hawai'i forecast map.

The weather package also includes the daily UV-index number, a very valuable resource in sun-drenched Hawai'i.

The index is on a 0 to 15 scale and is a forecast of the expected risk of overexposure to the sun. The UV forecast takes into account clouds and other conditions for each locality that affect the amount of UV radiation that will reach the ground. (The forecast this weekend was 11 for the UV Index, indicating extreme exposure.)

Most of the information in the Weather Report is provided to us by AccuWeather, the world's largest commercial weather service.

We're just one of Accu-Weather's 15,000 clients around the world. AccuWeather's staff includes 100 meteorologists, which the company claims is the largest staff of operational forecasters at one location anyplace in the world.

AccuWeather, based in State College, Pa., provides our weather data by 6 each evening.

Most of the time, the forecast provided by AccuWeather, and other local forecast information, will hold up and needs no updating.

However, when we have extreme weather, or surf or climate conditions that merit news stories, the weather information provided by outside entities is updated in our newsroom, using National Weather Service data.

All of us at The Advertiser know that regular readers of the daily Weather Report are passionate about the data we provide.

We hear from readers when there are inaccuracies or omissions. Those calls are rare, but we take those lapses seriously, and our graphics department, which has primary oversight over the weather package, is prompt about making fixes.

And we also know that despite the amount of information we do provide, there are readers who want more or different information. We try to strike a balance in the range of interests among our readers.

In choosing cities to include in our national temperature listing, for example, we attempt to represent cities from across the country.

We know many readers have favorite cities and want a forecast for those localities.

If we have not included one of your cities of interest, whether Mainland or foreign, we hope there is a nearby city on our lists that will be close enough to tell you what you want to know.

Senior editor Anne Harpham is The Advertiser's reader representative. Reach her at 525-8033 or aharpham@honoluluadvertiser.com.