Show HN: EBNF Specification of the BBC Shipping Forecast

A long time ago, two Canadian computer scientists published a paper where they had written a 1-page Lisp program that got a passing grade on the British Columbia written driver's exam. It relied on the fact that in those days, all questions on the exam that started with “Must...” had the answer “yes”, questions starting with “May...” had the answer “no”, any question containing “pedestrian” was answered with “stop, the pedestrian has the right of way”, and a few others. “Immediately notify the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles” was the default answer.

As I say, this program passed the exam, and the result was presented at a Canadian AI conference. They've changed the exam since then.

By the way, when I did my exam (long before this experiment), the person in front of me failed.

This is the cutest thing I have seen in weeks.

For those outside the UK who are unfamiliar, the shipping forecast is the most British thing possible. A concise forecast that reads as pure poetry, and before it, Sailing By:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFdas-kMF74

This has just given me the epiphany that if the BBC is ever put out to grass, which does now seem to be in the offing, then the preservation of the shipping forecast at least, would be only a few weather APIs and some speech synthesis away.

Which would be good / occasionally moderate.

The "strict" definition used here is not strict enough. Presumably it is based on the prose description in the linked Wikipedia page, which omits one crucial fact about the area forecasts: each area is included exactly once, and always in the same order (approximately clockwise starting from 'Viking' in the North East). Culturally speaking, it's an important part of the poetry that groups such as "Forth, Tyne, Dogger, German Bite" always appear in the same order, though the rhythm/groupings can be broken up differently depending on the weather patterns.

I'm still not happy that they renamed Finistere to FitzRoy, and that was 20 years ago now.

From my random forecast:

Faeroes, Wight, and FitzRoy. East hurricane force 12 to violent storm 11. Heavy snow. Poor, becoming good. Severe icing. Sole and Forties. East 2 to hurricane force 12, becoming cyclonic northeast severe gale 9 later. Wintry showers. Very poor, becoming poor. Severe icing.

Yikes! Might stay inside.

Excellent. Although the real shipping forecast is full of helpful forecasts like 'Moderate to good, occasionally very poor', which does seem to cover all the possibilities.

Is there any source that has all(or at least 1000+) of the historic shipping forecasts? I have an old tool to do probabilistic parsing that I would like to try on this.

Clip up some samples, Markov chain generator; endless fantasy SF for the insomniac …

What a brilliant idea! I had heard that people find listening to the shipping forecast very relaxing, but I didn't realise they had such a strict format

Now for a version for "professional idiot" Les Barker's Shipping Forecast variations. As well as video of Les reciting it, you can find a version read by Brian Perkins in his normal delivery.

Edit: The Perkins version is video G9QumF93PpY on youtube^Wan invidious instance. Check out more of Barker's stuff while you're at it.

This is my got to fall sleep radio. It the most British thing, it is actually (only really used it one) useful if you go sailing.

My partner complained last night I was snooring whilst this was too loud on my headphones, but I think of the map, the weather in that place - and off to sleep I got.

Any tools to generate a railroad diagram from EBNF? Preferably CLI.

Huh, great idea. Might (attempt to) do one of these for metars.

Fantastic - I wonder if any of the automated voices you could hook it up to could have the same relaxing quality as the real thing ?

Pressure tops out at 999?

Hour can only go from 0 to 19. Is this on purpose?

Wonderful, thanks for sharing.