In my lovely warm study I’m revelling in the wild weather
The forecast is cloudy. There has been an average of 0.68in (17.2mm) rainfall so far this week. A gentle wind is blowing in a south-easterly direction and I have a barometric reading of 1,102 hpa (which I think means it is going to chuck it down, although I haven’t yet fully got my head around hectopascals).
Sadly if you don’t live in south Sheffield – and trust me, it’s lovely, you really should – all this information may prove rather useless.
I have invested in a home weather station, you see, finally joining the ranks of amateur forecasters up and down the country analysing what is going on directly above my head.
The station is a futuristic sci-fi thing, manufactured in Japan and clad in robotic grey. I have mounted it on the garage facing north where, if I crane my neck, I can watch its little plastic spoons designed to measure wind speed spinning about in the breeze.
I find its presence oddly reassuring. Despite my usual aversion to home gadgets designed to harvest your individual data, it cuts a cheerful figure up there in rain or shine beaming the results back to a monitor which I keep next to my desk.
The scientific worth of my forecasts is questionable, of course. My little weather station’s fledgling recordings shed sparse light in comparison to the Met Office supercomputer.
Still, there is great value in this study of the local, much like recording in detail the nature in one’s back garden. Watching the figures flicker on the green LED screen is to glean a sense of something greater than us stirring above our heads: the weather in constant flux.
The outlook for the rest of the country looks suitably capricious. Sunny spells, scattered showers, a risk of hail and thunder to the east and even frosts persisting in the north.
From the warmth of my study I shall be watching, gripped by this elemental orchestra.