Weather forecasters should just give us facts
IWILL admit that I am a follower of weather forecasts. I check what the Met Office site says for Grimsby in the morning, which is often different to what BBC Weather Grimsby is predicting! And unless I’ve a meeting, I watch Paul Hudson on “Look North” in the early evening, enjoying his banter with veteran broadcaster Peter Levy. For as someone who does a fair amount of walking each day, even if it is only to get to and from bus stops, I naturally want to know if I’m going to get soaked or need to protect myself from the extremes of ice and sun.
Britain you see has a varied climate, so much so that at times only the length of day tells you the time of the year it is.
Which is why I’m sometimes puzzled as to official weather warnings.
I mean the other day I heard a radio warning of rain in part of Northern Ireland. But the UK is hardly the Sahara Desert, and Ireland is particularly noted for its rainfall.
Which is why we talk of the Emerald Isle, emeralds being green and Ireland associated with that colour because of what falls all too frequently from the sky.
Similarly, we are told to be careful of heat in summer, and cold in winter, as if they weren’t conditions expected in those months.
Personally, I think that forecasters should just give us the facts about what they expect will happen, and leave us to decide whether we need to take special measures or not.