Sunday February 17th 2019

Gotta love a typo. Sadly though this is becoming altogether a regular occurrence on the BBC Weather website. For years the BBC and the Met Office provided wonderful, if occasionally inaccurate weather, especially when the magnetic clouds fell off the map. TV gold.  But then that is weather, by nature, unpredictable, and chaotic.  Bazillions have been spent on new computer programmes and softwear able to predict way further into the future than before. Earth is ringed by a network of satellites beaming endless data down to Derek, who never leaving his alpine chalet, somewhere just left of Biarritz, processes all this for our convenience.  In reality however, 24-48 hours is about as good as it has gotten. My grandfather, a sea captain ploughing the Arctic waters during WW2 to feed the Russians, always said he needed to know the weather and 24 hours to 48 hours is as far as anyone can predict it. That was in the middle of the last Century, and it's not really changed, until today.

Around a year ago the BBC parted company with the Met Office and went into partnership with the European Meteo group. Who quite frankly is a "shower". Since then even the 24 hour forecast has become well lets be honest, about as reliable as wafting a strand of seaweed out the window at a passing cloud. If the seaweed is dry, I can predict it's not raining. And if it's wet? Its raining. That's my experience anyway in Somerset at least. Yet I persist with the BBC Weather pages for my lottery forecast of the day experience. Many a day has been forecast wet, I have ventured out on mackintosh and gumboots only to find the sun shining benignly from an azure blue sky. 

Today however the BBC Website has excelled. 

For weeks, the monthly forecast has been warning of a prolonged cold snap, something caused by a Polar Vortex, high pressure over Eastern Europe, and the second cousin twice removed of Derek who was given a weather station for Christmas and now sits in his shed in Montenegro with rune stones and a pencil. The Daily Express (who I love for their absolute disregard for accuracy) has produced doom laden pages strewn across the weeks, "three months of "snow-mageddon" - even yesterday they put this out, while everyone else bathed in the mild February climate set to continue for weeks.

Now though the BBC is joining the bandwagon with yesterdays Monthly Forecast - which amazingly has predicted 12 months ahead - March 4th to February 17th - a new super computer must have come on line then. Or extra seaweed.  Good forecast, not much in the way of facts, heavy with 'well we think' and 'possibly' and just brimming with uncertainty.  A colleague of mine a few years ago said she never takes any notice of the weather forecasts. As she prophetically said, "If you wish to know the weather, just look out of the window". I predict she may have a point there!