As the wind picks up, the rain starts to fall on what seems like a daily basis and the dials on my gas meter start turning faster; I found myself discussing the weather with a work acquaintance. At this point my memory reminds me that this is the third weather related conversation that day! As an Englishman, it’s time-honoured to believe that this island of ours (my Scottish wife at this point tells me it is better to describe myself as British), which is in the firing line of a succession of Atlantic storms is home to the most weather-obsessed nation in the world. But it leads me to asking the question: “Is it my Britishness that has me talk of weather to break the ice with whomever I wish to converse or is our weather truly worthy of a billion lost man-hours stood around the metaphorical water cooler?”
I have done a little digging and it seems to me that measuring, ore more importantly, predicting the weather is not as easy as it sounds! The sheer volume of data is the first obstacle, making accurate measurements that are comparable with the readings from other weather stations 50 miles away, a 100 miles away or 43 years ago demands careful attention to standards set out in a deep and complex methodology by the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) in Geneva. Weather measurement quality and modern recording devices have gone through a huge technological change in the last 20 years or so, as automated computer operated weather stations have increasingly replaced human observers, sometimes it seems with a decrease in the quality and reliability of the measurements as human oversight has been withdrawn.
Hang on a minute, this could get very bogged down in numbers and tables, graphs and flowcharts. That’s boring. Who stands around that water cooler discussing millimetres of rainfall this November compared to last November? We have to discuss things from a blurred memory bank that could no less likely recall the weather from last Friday, let alone last February; yet we still discuss the weather in absolutes and as if we have total recall of the weather conditions for any particular day from our 7th birthday right up to yesterday. Even the WMO might take an hour or two to dig up the kind of data that might be useful!
I guess what I am saying is that we end up using weather as a means to an end. It’s what they call a “Starter for ten” in University Challenge; it’s a way to find conversation where there is nothing else to use as a start point. We have all fallen foul to the, “Did you see (insert any TV program here) last night?” Promptly followed with a response of, “No, I cant stand (insert presenter from said program here), they annoy the hell out of me!” One core response can be, “But what about that rain last night!” It’s safe as houses! Who doesn’t hate the rain?
Back to me and my 3 weather related conversations. It turns out I had good cause. At the Hazelwick school we have a lot of outside spaces that we let, including football pitches. I have had to learn what makes a pitch playable, playable but just once that day or plain and simply dangerous! Why, because our customers who use these pitches seem as obsessed as I have become. It’s now our aim to ensure that we give the most up-to date live data to customers so they can plan, cancel or discuss their needs!
Is the Great Britain really still a nation ‘obsessed with the weather’? On the basis of evidence, perhaps that distinction really now belongs to the people whose lives it really effects, even if just a nuisance!
