Since when do they use the correct word?

[dglenn]

Whoa! A television-news weather reporter just said "average" instead of "normal" when she meant "average" with regard to historical temperature data, and the on-screen graphic used the word "average" as well! When did that change happen?

And is there any chance that other stations will follow suit?

Comments

[silmaril]

I think so, too. I wish I didn't.

[garnet_rattler]

I'm with chesuli on this one; it was an anomoly. They will be harassed back into conformity with the lowest common denominator by the marketing department or management by the next newscast or as soon as one of those folks notices.

[madbodger]

If I could figure out what's perpendicular to temperature, I could figure out the
normal!

[doubleplus]

Actually, "normal" is an international standard weather term meaning the average of the past three decades, recalculated every ten years (see here, for example.) So it's more precise than "average," because if you take the meaning of that as "average of all years for which we have measurements" then it's both potentially comparing apples to oranges with different locations, and given climate trends wouldn't be as useful in a weather report.

(Sure, that should be explained more often, but it's not exactly something that's worth mentioning in every newscast.)

[dglenn]

I hadn't realized it was a meteorological "term of art"; I kept thinking "normal" should be a range a couple of sigmas across. Hmm. (Though I still keep wondering what the statistically-speaking-normal range is when they show me that weather-speech-normal/30-year-average.)