DEAR SUN SPOTS: I would appreciate it if you could ask Channel 8 why they report on the weather news that Berlin, N.H., and Bethel, Maine, have the same temperature 100 percent of the time? I live in Bethel, so I know this is erroneous. — No Name, Bethel.
ANSWER: Sun Spots reached out to WMTW Channel 8 News on your behalf, and the station’s Chief Meteorologist Roger Griswold responded. He explained that the temperature information that scrolls in a ticker at the bottom of the screen during a newscast is automatically gathered from a reporting site, or from the nearest reporting site to the listed location. The closest reporting station with a set of National Weather Service instruments to the town of Bethel is Berlin, N.H. — about 17 miles away.
Griswold says, “Although not perfect, it is the closest approximation possible, and is intended to supplement the lack of data from Bethel.”
During their on-air weather presentation, Griswold says they do report temperature data for Bethel that is, in fact, taken from the airport in Bethel. But because the instruments in Berlin provide the automated data that the ticker uses, those numbers are what you see scrolling across your screen.
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