Poetic licence: The Iso-Bard

Two North American weather channels are aiming to revolutionise TV weather forecasts. But could they ever have the poetry of our home- grown product?

"Sweeping in from the Atlantic

Packing in behind that low

Showers bubbling - pretty beefy

Many, right from the word, `Go.'

Morning mists burned off by sunlight

Lingering on some north sea coasts..."

Nothing ever forged a forecast

Like the poetry of its hosts

Penny Tranter, Ian McCaskill

Kettley, Bacon, Giles and Lloyd

Temperatures quite academic

Lest the public be annoyed

Forecasts for less sheltered areas;

Cast no clout/don thermal vest

How they miss magnetic rainclouds

And the voice of Laurie West

Michael Fish, yet unforgiven

Garish tie, flamboyant jacket

Smarting still from 'eighty-seven

When the soft south caught a packet

Tossing coins,the luckier Met men

Watch the spinning weathercocks

Suzanne Charlton, short of inches

Alan Ladd-like, mounts the box...

"Pretty chilly in that gale, with

Gusts of up to forty-five

Edging up to double figures

When those lighter winds arrive...

Then tomorrow, clearing slowly

Giving broken sunshine to

Many west and central areas

And that's it from Weatherview."