Talking about the weather

Weather in the UK is a strange beast which nobody seems to be able to get an exact handle on.

Compared to many places in the world, the climate is tame, yet the amount of time spent discussing it in detail would lead you to believe it has the most intense weather on the planet.

You can't help but get caught up in all the talk (and the weather itself) and I find myself scanning the BBC weather broadcasts 3 or 4 times a day.

The interest in the weather may because the forecasts are so frequently wrong and change so often from hour to hour, you may as well look out the window to decide what to wear and when to travel.

When I arrived here, the media was full of gloom about a winter countrywide shutdown, due to "the big freeze", a return to the 3 day week, gas shortages and death and mayhem on a grand scale.
It was suggested it would be the coldest weather since the 1950's, when one year, the Thames froze over.

It didn't happen (or at least, not yet)
Instead, December was normal to mild, with a cold snap just after Xmas which is set to ease from tonight.

5 days ago, the 5 day London forecast predicted today would have light snow. Over the following days, it went to heavy snow, sleet, rain, back to light snow, back to heavy snow and finally this morning, light snow.

In reality, it rained all morning.

There's just no making sense of it, even with all the money being thrown at the latest technology to attempt to predict what the weather has in store.

BBC TV weather is now like an advanced Google earth and gives you an accurate picture of a frequently inaccurate forecast. They may as well go back to manually sticking cloud and sun symbols onto the map, at least giving us the opportunity for a laugh when they start sliding out of place or fall off the map entirely.

So proud were the BBC of their new TV weather reporting system, they made a documentary about it, which you can view on the BBC weather website. I'm sure your all just dying to view it.

Personally, I think they should install webcams all over the country to look out for red skies at night, in the morning, cows lying down, birds flying backwards and pine cones opening and closing.
They could then use the data gathered to get a forecast about as accurate as a billion quid computer forecasting system.

I think I'll write to the BBC to suggest my idea. Perhaps they could even create a computer generated model of the cows, birds, skies and pine cones instead of watching the real ones in action.

At least I know what the weather will be like for the next hour or so, I just looked out the window and saw a herd of cows thundering down the road backwards. That means it's going to rain frogs in 30 minutes.