Friday, February 19, 2010

Weather watch...


Whilst it might be a very pretty sight, this photograph, taken about fifty yards from my front door about 8.30 this morning serves to illustrate the sheer inaccuracy of our weather forecasting service, as provided by the Met Office.
During last night's local evening news programme, the weather forecast made no reference to the possibility of snow in the Ribble Valley, or anywhere else in Lancashire, for that matter, whilst the earlier national version warned of potentially heavy falls on the Eastern side of the country.
So, it was with weary resignation that I looked through the window an hour later and saw a scene more reminiscent of Ice Station Zebra, than a small corner of northern England.
However, my fundamental point is this; if the Met Office are really only providing us with what is little more than their best - and often inaccurate - guess as to what the weather is going to do, what is the point of spending so much money on it.
We'd be as well served going to the local wise woman and asking her to divine the forthcoming weather by a skilled examination of freshly slaughtered chicken intestines.
It is a nice picture, though...

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