Newest meteorologist at SKY News Weather

SKY News Weather recently appointed meteorologist Bradlyn Oakes to its presenting team.

She joins Rob Sharpe and Alison Osborne, now comprising the largest team of meteorologists on network television, alongside presenters Lucy Polkinghorne and Rhiannon Elston.

Oakes has been a meteorologist for the last four years in the Canadian arctic, working in the Northern Lights capital of Yellowknife and Canadian province Saskatchewa. She served as a Maritime Warfare Officer in the Royal Australian Navy, specialising in meteorology, and providing weather forecasts and tactical advice for Australian Defence Force ships and aircraft.

Chris Willis, Head of News at Sky News Australia, said: “Weather forecasting is still the main task at SKY News Weather. Viewers want to know what the temperature and weather conditions will be in the days and weeks ahead. Our team of meteorologists give us the scientific expertise to provide that, and our weather reporters give us t’e ability to report on the impact of weather events. But, viewers have told us they also want to know the “why’ of major weather events and our new style of graphic presentation will enable us to do that better”.

As part of its deepening coverage Sky News Weather has scheduled new hourly bulletins during the day combining Australian weather forecasts and news with global weather events. It has begun deploying its team of meteorologists and weather reporters to various parts of Australia to get eyewitness accounts of weather events as they happen and the impact on local communities.

Weather reporters have visited flood affected communities in NSW and Victoria to report on how residents are coping with the aftermath of these big weather events. Recently, when big seas battered the east coast of Australia, Alison Osborne was on the scene in New South Wales showing viewers what was happening and explaining why it was happening.

Sky News Weather has enlisted the resources of CNN, Associated Press, Reuters, Fox News and Storyful to bring up to the minute video of weather events around the globe, and explain why they are happening and the impact.

In the past month Sky News Weather has reported extensively on wildfires in Canada, typhoon Mawar in Myanmar and various tornados in the United States.

Sky News Weather has also invested in graphic technology to explain the cause of major weather events in Australia. To date, graphic packages on flooding and tropical cyclones have been executed using this emerging technology, with plans to disseminate more content around bushfires and thunderstorms in the coming weeks.