Meteorological Madness

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30959, 15 January 1966, Page 4

Meteorological Madness

[A Fourth Leader in “The Times”]

Crazes are good fun while they last. But they become a bore if they go on too long. Sound sense of timing among schoolboys and grown-ups alike calls a halt. The addicts cease to be mad about something and pass on to something else. Has not the time come for applying this healthy rule to the relentless outpourings of long and short range weather forecasts? Would not a New Year’s resolution by all concerned to keep it short—-which would mean in practice cutting it by three-quarters or more—bring much relief to weatherweary citizens in 1966? As those ridges of low pressure come seeping in from this or that quarter, so over recent years has the bulk

of meteorological prognostica- ■ tions grown larger and larger and heavier and heavier. Strange voices tell us—as we wake up to hear the rain pattering on the roof—that after a bright and sunny start rain will reach us from the west. When, as has been happening lately and for longer than bears thinking about, the weather is absolutely foul, the voices take on a Torquemada note of torture. Beginning at John o’Groat’s with sleet and snow and freezing fog, they carry on relentlessly down the length and breadth of Britain, reiterating their litany of sleet and snow and freezing fog. They have even been allowed to go into reverse and. looking backwards, to tell us at length what we know only too well, [that past weeks brought | floods, frosts, fogs—the lot. 1 Their comrades who peer [confidently into the more distant future are at least given a breathing space before it can [be said that they had one eye [on a true crystal ball and the [other on a false one. Unfortunately, painstaking and wellmeaning and scientific though [they are, they act too often [as wet blankets. They have [left on laymen an impression [that bad though the weather is nowadays, it is never going [to get any better. The last [half-century or so has, it seems, been a balmy interlude to be followed by years only to be enjoyed by people who can sincerely chant “Welcome wild North-easter.” Undeniably there is a fascination about all forecasts. They are as irresistible as the incantations of the witch doctors among folk even more simple than we are. It would be unfair to our weather prophets to deny that they have their helpful side. But too much can be had of a good thing.