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Climate Control

by | 5th, October 2005

‘WHO can fail but to look out of the window on a day like this, take in gulp of visible air and scream: “SCORCHIO!”

‘And for those of you watching in black and white, it’s snowing’

Not us, and not the Met Office’s weathergirls, who, as the Times reports, have been told to put a nice spin, or a small cyclone, on the weather report. They are to accentuate the positives.

No more will there be a “small chance of a shower” – not when it’s “mainly dry”. “Localised storms” for some really mean “dry for most”. A massive hurricane heading for the southern States of the USA becomes, to the Times’s cartoonist “tremendous kite-flying weather”.

As a Met Office spokesman explains: “We are asking forecasters to think carefully about the language they use. If there is bad weather in a remote, relatively unpopulated part of Britain but it is mainly dry for the majority, the forecast should reflect that.”

Reading between the isobars, that seems to say that the weathergirls should focus on the urban areas. A commuter making the journey to work in Birmingham will be keen to know if she should carry an umbrella, as will any Welsh hill farmer or Kent fruit picker listening in.

It’s good as far as it goes, But why not go the extra yard? Perhaps the bikini-clad weathergirl can give it her best sunny smile for a hot and bight day over London, and wear a wet T-shirt whenever it looks like rain in Manchester?

Weather reports for Bristol and Bath will be broadcast after the watershed…’



Posted: 5th, October 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink