Watch out for INCLEMENT weather!
WHEN I embarked on a career in journalism – too close to half a century ago for comfort – the media embraced snow.
Sorry, it’s SNOW according to our digital sister BirminghamLive, which has adopted capital letters to warn its readers of impending DANGER, even DEATH.
Back in the 1970s, I and a photographer who delighted in the name Snakehips Harris, a fiftysomething individual with his own salacious album of local beauties captured on cameras in his shed, were tasked with scouring parks for tobogganing children, snowmen and playful snowball fights.
We once photographed kids sliding down a motorway embankment, something frowned upon in these nanny state days.
There was a smattering of public service announcements, such as “Avoid yellow snow” and “If your gran’s blue, she’s probably had enough fun for one day”.
I can only recall one injury, but he was a nude model for a society of snowmen sculptors.
Now, however, the prospect of an impending dusting of white stuff is greeted with much darker journalistic prose. It is a source of terror (sorry, TERROR).
BirminghamLive warned this week: “Birmingham set for bone-chilling Polar Vortex as temperatures plunge to -1°C.”
Meteorologist Andrej Flis explained: “In the past days, the polar vortex reached a 40-year record strength for this time of year. It would likely strengthen even further, but its rise to power was stopped and reversed, due to two pressure/temperature waves that press onto the vortex.
“That reduces the speed of the stratospheric polar jet stream. That is a strong sign of a collapsed polar vortex. What does all this mean for our weather? Well, a collapsed vortex always greatly increases the chances for winter weather.”
I’m none the wiser, frankly, but devoured the Monday morning alert and told the wife: “Take cover, our vortex has collapsed!”
Puzzlingly, on the same day, the very same news site warned temperatures would plummet to -8°C in the Black Country, considerably cooler than neighbouring Birmingham.
The message would appear to be: bung elderly relatives in Sandwell on a bus to Bordesley Green.
The Independent has even foisted a new meteorological phenomenon onto the unsuspecting public – “thundersnow”.
The online newspaper reported: “Talking about ‘thundersnow’, where the rain associated with a thunderstorm falls as snow, Met Office meteorologist Emma Sharples said, ‘It is possible, all that it really needs is for thunder to happen at the same time as the snow’.”
May I introduce the possibility of it raining frogs. It is possible, all that it really needs is a mini-tornado vacuuming the amphibeans, then dumping them over Birmingham.
The RAC has already urged us to avoid unecessary journeys. The motoring organisation is preaching to the converted. I’ve never clutched the steering wheel and thought: “I haven’t got a clue why I’m here, but I’m going to put my foot down and drive unnecessarily until the petrol runs out.”
The Mirror blared: “UK weather forecasters are now warning Britain is facing its own deadly winter freeze, with Arctic temperatures sparking warnings to take extra care during killer cold weather.”
“Blizzards and dangerously low temperatures persisted in parts of Europe yesterday,” trumpeted the Daily Mail, “prompting the Pope to draw attention to the homeless suffering in freezing weather.”
I’m not comfortable with the Pontiff administering weather forecasts. OK, he has connections, but if the shoe were on the other foot, would I take a blind bit of notice if Michael Fish spouted about contraception?
One website has called on the elderly to “dress appropriately”. I hope my 85-year-old aunt pays heed: frankly, she looks ridiculous in those hot pants.
If our own BirminghamLive is correct, you are already in the grip of the “killer Arctic blast” – in the media, there is no such thing as an “irritating Arctic blast” – and, therefore, DEAD.
If so, I apologise. I’ve been terribly insensitive and wasted your time and mine.
If not, we got it wrong, again making the schoolboy error of assuming conditions in Coleshill will be the same as the Cairngorms. We did the same in summer: Dudley was not hotter than Death Valley.
At least the local warnings were a little more muted than in the national tabloids and showed a degree of restraint in reporting.
Our piece added: “The British Government today issued a level 2 cold weather alert ahead of thermometers plunging.”
I haven’t the foggiest what a level 2 warning is. I do not know if it is better or worse than a level 1 warning, but it sounds dramatic, up there with Code Red. The Daily Mail warned locals to brace themselves for two to five centimetres of snow. Two centimetres is 0.787402 inches. That’s more inclement than killer.