Resurrection of Blog - Reason number 1 : Weather Forecasts

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Three things have moved me to resurrect this blog today which has not been posted on since February this year. It's not that I have not been "moved" (insert as appropriate - shocked, angry, happy, joyful,thankful, grateful, upset, furious, insensed ) for the last 9 months because believe me, I have. But the rapidly diminishing brain cells have often prevented me writing it down. 
The other blogs / pages that I post are specific to a theme so that leaves me with Write-Place to, well, write other stuff. I have checked back to the original gumph of what I said in 2008 that I intended posting on it and am pleased to be reminded that I said almost anything was appropriate, so here we are. 

I was brought up in a family culture that listened to and discussed the weather forecasts on the radio and then television and "lighting up time" was noted faithfully. Not that we ever had a car but cycling was an important means of transport. By the time I was 5 years old I was well versed even in the shipping areas of Dogger, Forties, Fastnet and Fair Isle though I doubt I could place them accurately now. Living on the coast and my father being a draughtsman at the shipyard I suppose added to the relevance for us. 


Recently I've noticed that the weather reporters are talking a lot about what the weather "should be" for the time of year. I have to admit here that I have heard this often on the BBC weather forecasts, but also on ITV and Channel 4  (my admittance here is that yes, I do still watch the BBC even though I have stated a number of times that I am boycotting it. If I didn't watch then I would have less to complain about / discuss and that wouldn't be a good thing for blogging purposes)


I do like this smiley, friendly lady - Carol I think her name is - but I wish she would explain who it is that decides what the weather "should" be. In August it was colder than it should be for quite a few days and over the past couple of months we have been told that it has been much warmer than it should be for Autumn. It's not as if we can reasonably say when it's Spring or Summer with all the talk of climate change and global warming. I've heard people saying "we have four seasons in one day"and they are not far wrong. But what it should be like, surely isn't what can be said about weather, no matter what it is.

So I have got this matter openly aired. 
I started writing this post this morning then was sidetracked with other things. As I finish it at around 7pm, the news and forecasters are reporting on the snowdrifts and arctic temperatures in north east of United States. At least one newspaper is saying that these conditions will be with us in Britain by next week. 
Ice and snow in November. That's not what it should be like till next month, is it ? 





Comments

liz young said…
I think "Should be" should be replaced by "We hope we've got this right but we're not sure enough to commit ourselves, so don't blame us if we've got it wrong."
12 December 2014 at 02:16
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