New weather symbols for Finnish Meteorological Institute website
As a result of the change the weather symbols in use on the pages will describe more accurately what meteorologists are forecasting.
For instance, rain showers will now be indicated in weather forecasts with a different weather symbol than continuous rain. The categories for cloudiness have been generally expanded. There are now five different degrees of cloudiness in use instead of just three.
Weather symbols nowadays also identify relatively rare, but possibly dangerous weather situations. Among the selection are new specific weather symbols for continuous drizzle or freezing rain and fog.
"Until now, we have used a weather symbol with a dark cloud and one drop of water to forecast various types of rain. In the new array of weather symbols forecasts will be more detailed; instead of the old symbol there can be a symbol indicating a shower, drizzle, freezing rain or freezing drizzle. The old, weather symbol for light rain will now be divided into as many as eight different weather phenomena, says meteorologist Pauliina Kuokka as she explains the significant change to the weather symbols.
New weather symbols change outward appearance of on-line services
The new weather symbols will give on-line weather forecasts a new appearance. On web pages the new weather symbols will be in use both the current weather and forecast maps and on all of the tabs of the local weather map. On local weather pages the explanations of the forecast can be seen on a desktop computer by placing the mouse cursor on top of the symbol.
Upgraded weather symbols also for Weather app
The same expanded selection of weather symbols has also been taken into use in the Finnish Meteorological Institute's Weather application for smartphones.
For users of the application the change in weather symbols requires an upgrade of the app to its newest version.
Learn more about the weather symbols:
Download the Weather application of the Finnish Meteorological Institute to your smartphone:
Further information and download links
More information on the weather symbol upgrade:
Meteorologist Pauliina Kuokka tel. +358 29 539 4516 pauliina.kuokka@fmi.fi