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The local radio station says they will give an "hour-by-hour" or "hourly" weather forecast, but then gives what the expected temperatures and weather will be at 8am, 12pm, 4pm and 8pm rather than a forecast for each hour.

Is there a better (but still quick) way to describe the forecast?

Edit: To clarify, I am talking about a single forecast where they give the weather they expect to see at 4 different times through the day.

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  • I suspect that "hourly" refers to how often they deliver updates to the forecast (e.g. they announce it every hour) rather than how many times are in the forecast.
    – Blckknght
    Jan 20, 2016 at 0:45
  • I would expect that every four hours they give the expected temperature for four hours. That is at 8am, they announce what the temperature is and what it's expected to be at 9am, 10am, and 11am. Is that what they do?
    – deadrat
    Jan 20, 2016 at 1:51

3 Answers 3

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Every four hours or at 4, 8 and 12. Sometimes a single word Is too obscure and sounds contrived.

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There's no word I know of that specifically denotes four hour periods as other terms can (hourly, daily, weekly, fortnightly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, annually, quarterly etc).

I would suggest that four-hourly would probably work best here.

Tune in for our four-hourly weather updates at eight, twelve, four and eight.

Or just use verbalise the meaning:

Tune in for weather updates at eight, four, twelve and eight.

We have weather updates every four hours, at eight, four, twelve and eight.

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I have worked in meteorology, and the data for weather monitoring typically comes in hourly chunks, but the forecasts are updated on a different schedule (in part because equipment/software can fail to check in every hour). But to answer your question...quadhourly seems like it could be the word. Or perhaps quarterdaily or periodically. In searching for an answer, I have to wonder what you would call morning, afternoon, evening, and night other than times of day because they describe each respective period well on their own.

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  • Good point about morning, afternoon etc.
    – Dragonel
    Jan 20, 2016 at 22:27

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