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So long, Sven - weather radio has a new synthetic voice The weather service hopes the computerized Craig sounds more natural than his predecessor By BILL KETTLER They've put old Sven out to pasture at the National Weather Service. The computer-generated voice that formerly broadcast local weather forecasts has been replaced by a new voice named Craig. Weather forecasters hope listeners will find Craig easier to understand than Sven, whose speech patterns won him a Scandinavian nickname soon after he made his debut back in December 1999. Craig's no James Earl Jones, but he sounds far more human than Sven. He'll improve as technicians knock the rough edges off his pronunciation and cadence, says Roger Williams, manager of the weather service's Medford station. "We'll eventually get him pretty well smoothed out," Williams says. Craig's debut marks the local arrival of a synthetic-speech computer program that's already in use at many of the weather service's 120 regional stations across the United States. Meteorologists type their forecasts into a computer, which "reads" the words and translates them into computer-generated speech. Before there was computer-generated speech, meteorologists recorded their forecasts. Forecasts are upgraded every six hours, so the weather service decided it would be more efficient over the long haul to let computers do the talking. Most people hear the forecasts on weather radios - inexpensive, fixed-frequency receivers that are popular among outdoor enthusiasts, farmers and anyone else who wants up-to-the-minute weather information. Forecasts from the Medford weather station cover an area that extends north to Roseburg, west to the ocean, south to Mount Shasta and east to Klamath Falls and Lake County. Craig's voice also delivers the Medford area forecast on the National Weather Service's local telephone forecast line - 779-5990. Williams said Craig's voice sounds more natural because he has a larger vocabulary of sounds than Sven had. Technicians had to spell some words phonetically to fool Sven into pronouncing them properly. Oregon, for example, had to be spelled Orregun on typewritten forecasts. Forecasters could have chosen a female voice (nicknamed Donna) but gave Craig the job after listeners in other areas told the weather service the female voice sounded less "polished." Williams said Donna might become part of the local forecast team someday, but it would take too much time right now to train Donna's voice and Craig's, too. "I'd like to implement Donna someday," Williams said, "but that's a long-term goal." Listeners still will hear Sven on the weather-radio station's identification announcement, which is hard-wired into the computer system. But Sven won't be delivering forecasts unless Craig's software goes down, Williams said. "Sven's there on backup. He still comes in and visits. We'll put him to work if we need him." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.