Digital Weatherman

The Digital Weatherman is the name of a computer automation system that provides audio weather forecasts to hundreds of radio stations and cable systems across the United States.

This method of providing weather information to listeners allows many broadcasters to provide 24 hour coverage of severe weather events and current conditions without requiring full time staff. It was invented by Tom Churchill and first marketed to radio stations in 1986. Based on a PC the system contains 30,000 small audio cuts of every possible weather condition or bulletin information that can be spoken. The PC reads text forecast information and uses this to merge audio cuts into a complete weathercast based on the radio station's preferences, including exact length, and current temperature, rainfall, and other weather information of interest. The radio station then plays the completed weathercast on the air which to listeners is virtually indistinguishable from a weathercast being read by a live announcer.

The audio libraries are in different voices, and even in different languages. This allows users to create weather forecasts and bulletins in Spanish, for example, directly from English text, instantaneously. The first automated Spanish language weather bulletins using this method aired in 1997 on KANS-FM in Emporia, Kansas.

The Digital Weatherman is still in use today.