“Pultik didn’t work live”: weather forecasters revealed funny cases

Irina POLYAKOVA: “I don’t care what the weather is, as long as it’s according to the forecast”

There are no uniform requirements for presenters who tell viewers about the weather, so on different channels these headings can be led by both sultry beauties and academic-looking men of mature years. On one channel, some time ago, they even tried to combine the forecast with a striptease, and, reporting the weather, the girls gradually got rid of their clothes.

We can say that Irina Polyakova is one of the few who got on Meteo-TV according to the diploma she received from the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University. “Each channel, of course, has its own vision of the leading weather forecaster. On NTV, for example, they wanted meteorologists to talk about the weather. And so the producer Alexander Mitroshenkov found me at the Hydrometeorological Center, where I planned to defend my dissertation. As a result, my life completely turned upside down, it turned out that it was television forecasts that were mine, ”says Irina. – Many of my colleagues are not so deeply immersed in the process, perhaps for them this is just a stage in their television career. I come to work to work. I really love my specialty. In general, we have a serious organization, here we ourselves predict, interpret, translate information about atmospheric processes into a form that is digestible for the audience. So that with excursions towards science, but in its popular form.

Irina has a reputation as a host, which gives the film crew a lot of trouble. She herself works with animators who draw maps according to her scenario. And if there is some inconsistency between the visualization and the presenter’s ideas about the forecast, then you have to redo it. And Irina is still very worried if the weather does not obey the forecasts.

“Everything can go as we predicted, but with small deviations,” the presenter notes. – That is, the snow we promised was, but not in Moscow, but in Yaroslavl. Of course, a person may be disappointed, or, conversely, rejoice if he was threatened with a downpour, but there was sun. Personally, I don’t care what the weather is like. If only she was predictable. Not good, not bad, but obedient.

But even on a festive day for meteorologists, the weather cannot do without sensations and tricks. So don’t be surprised if your favorite electronic and radio devices suddenly start to interfere or your health worsens. This strong solar flare triggers a magnetic storm.

However, the most risky forecast of our METEO forecasting center is the forecast for the summer. What will it be like? The answer is to be found at the equator. More recently, scientists announced the end of the La Niña (Spanish: girl) era, an equatorial current that cools the atmosphere. Because of it, by the way, global warming has slightly slowed down. But this summer, La Niña will be replaced by El Niño (Spanish: baby), which brings warm waters that warm the atmosphere. In this regard, a sensational increase in the activity of tropical cyclones, a new impulse to warm the atmosphere and more frequent weather-related natural disasters are predicted. This summer there will be as many dangerous showers, thunderstorms, squalls as have not been recorded in the entire history of meteorological observations!

There was a time when meteorologists drew maps themselves, then gave them to artists, they, in turn, gave them a more or less pleasant look, and this became a backdrop for forecasts. Now the technology is completely different. The presenter is in a space that on the TV screen turns into dynamic projections with maps and bright graphics. From the outside, it all looks like a flight control center, but no matter how perfect the technology is, failures still occur.

“I have a remote control in my hands, with its help I switch cards. And this remote control somehow didn’t work, and on the air, – Irina recalls. — I see myself on the background of the map when I look at the side monitor. And so I look into it, and there is just a bare globe, from which the forecast begins. I switch again. No effect. As a result, I read the entire issue without graphics, and, of course, there was a serious reprimand from the management. Like, let Polyakova no longer use the remote control, and specially trained people switch everything. And my birthday was even more fun. The news anchors agreed with the administrator that he would give me flowers in the frame. Of course, I was not warned about this. And now they bring flowers, and I have a remote control in my hands, and it is not clear what to do with all this. I decided to put the flowers on the floor, sat down a little and disappeared from the frame, which, of course, puzzled the director very much. But then everything went well.”

Victoria CHERNIKOVA: “This is a very nice girl’s work”

Victoria drew attention to the leading forecasts as a child. Beautiful elegant ladies talking about the weather impressed both children and adults, but not all of the enthusiastic viewers then try themselves on television. “Apparently, this childhood dream was sitting inside me,” Victoria smiles.

However, to what she is doing now, Victoria did not go the most direct way. First, she came to enter the acting department of the Moscow State Faculty of Culture and Arts. However, the Taganrog accent became a serious obstacle, and as a result, the future TV presenter went to the department of speech technology.

“For five years of study at the institute, I learned to speak differently,” recalls Victoria. – In fact, you need to put the pronunciation of each letter. I did everything wrong because of my accent. Somewhere the sounds lengthened, somewhere shortened, put the wrong stress. Now it’s a completely different matter.”

Vika could make comments to colleagues about pronunciation, but the TV presenter says that it doesn’t even occur to her, because each has its own voice and its own sound. She herself came to the casting on the advice of friends – and for five years now, one might say, she has been living in her childhood dream. “Probably, I won’t be able to communicate with weather forecasters on an equal footing yet, but for five years I’ve been deeply in the subject, I know the basic definitions and don’t say the text that I don’t understand,” the TV presenter notes. “In general, this is a very pleasant girl’s work. I don’t even see it as a job. At the moment, I get great pleasure, but how it will develop further, whether the presenters will be needed to talk about the weather, no one knows.

During her work in forecasts, Victoria has developed a kind of ritual, to which the audience is already indifferent. “With the host of Vesti, during which I go out with a forecast, we agree in advance what color his tie and my dress will be,” Victoria smiles. – As a rule, a harmonious color tandem is obtained. And when we do not have time to agree, the audience writes that, apparently, Victoria and Denis are in a bad mood today or they quarreled.

Renata KAMALOVA: “I myself, like a shoemaker without boots, often get caught in the rain without an umbrella”

Renata dreamed of a faculty of international relations and a job at the Foreign Ministry, but she entered international journalism and graduated from MGIMO with honors. “Then I worked for some time at the Ministry of Culture, and nothing foreshadowed my path to television,” recalls Renata. – When it became clear that after the ministry I needed to go somewhere, the view from the window of my apartment helped me. And I live right next to the Ostankino tower. As a result, I sent my resume to Ostankino.

The position that was offered to Renata did not involve work in the frame, but there was absolutely no time to worry about this. A certified international journalist plunged headlong into the film and TV industry, made a lot of new acquaintances, wrote releases and articles about new projects. “A couple of years later I went to the casting of the leading weather. True, before that she graduated from the courses of television and radio hosts, Renata notes. – Journalism and weather forecasting, of course, are quite different in terms of terms, but we were organized weather courses in which we plunged into the world of weather forecasts, so I joined the process quite easily. We know what we’re talking about and never wanted to be just talking heads.”

However, even an understanding of the intricacies of work and eight years of experience do not always affect the accuracy of forecasts. And here, perhaps, it is important to treat this philosophically. “Of course, we sometimes make mistakes, but we try to do it effectively,” Renata laughs. – Mom can still call and ironically remark that I promised the sun, but it never appeared. I myself am like a shoemaker without boots. Very often I get caught in the rain without an umbrella, apparently, I don’t listen to myself when I report forecasts.

Olga PARSHINA: “Sometimes I feel like a tire fitting worker”

Before becoming a television meteorologist, Olga studied television from many different angles. “I always wanted to get into the television kitchen,” says the TV presenter. – After classes at Ostankino, I was offered the position of producer in the Good Morning program. It was the school of life. Somehow I was asked to find a tattered boot in order to shoot a story about consumer rights in a situation where there are claims against shoe manufacturers. And I had a very favorite pair of boots just brought from Italy. My parents and I made a collective decision about which boot to tear and how to do it so that it could be patched up later. In the end, I did a very good job of portraying everything. But, despite all these everyday and everyday moments, the love for television did not pass, and after I worked for five years as a correspondent, I managed to get to the weather forecast.

Working as a producer, correspondent and even a news presenter gave Olga a lot of skills, but in the weather forecasting studio she had to deal with very extravagant details. “I thought it was easier. If on the screen we show something to the right of ourselves, then in the studio we do it in a mirror image. At first, it is not easy to remember different subtleties, but everything is worked out. Especially if you love what you do, says Olga. “I’m a bookworm in a good way. When I was preparing for the first broadcasts, I watched episodes with other presenters and tried to remember where which city was in the picture on the monitor. Then she drew a map for herself and rehearsed with it. And of course, the terms: cyclones, anticyclones, saw, baric bottom. All this eventually subsided in my head. Although at first it seemed that the weatherman was a character from Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings, controlling fireballs. True, lately I often feel like a tire fitting worker, because friends in a certain season regularly ask if it’s time to change the car’s shoes.