Somebody Else's Weather

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 802, 3 December 1954, Page 4

Somebody Else's Weather

NE of the oddest features of () the Home News from Britain, broadcast every morning in the six and seven o'clock bulletins, is a description of the weather. The announcer painstakingly informs us that rain is spreading over the north, or that it is fair to fine somewhere else. There are perhaps new settlers who continue to feel a nostalgic interest in the weather in England, though it seems unlikely. But the mass of listeners are simply New Zealanders, old and new; and the friendliest concern for Britain can barely reach the point where frosts and showers, or even fogs, seem worth noticing at a distance of 12,000 miles. In summer, no doubt, the contrast between mild days here and the deepening cold overseas will cause a momentary smugness; and in winter, when the situation is reversed, the announcements have an opposite effect. But the aim of a news service beamed across the world can scarcely be to make us complacent or wistful. It is true that the weather, especially in England, is an engrossing topic; and even in New Zealand the conversation among acquaintances would be impoverished if the fineness of the day, the need of rain for tanks and gardens, or the persistence of high winds could no longer be mentioned. But the only weather which seriously interests us-un-less a Test match is being played -is what we are getting ourselves. Newsmen ,of the BBC are possibly infected more than they realise by the preoccupation with climate, which is a feature of the English character. They are so much absorbed in the subject, like everyone else around them, that they slip inté the error of supposing that the world in general feels a deep concern for their daily hopes and frustrations. At a distance, however, the weather can surely become newsworthy only when it reaches extremes of

heat and cold, or leads to severe and dangerous upheavals of the kind that are described in a new series of documentaries, "Nature in Four Moods" (see page 6). Storms, floods and earthquakes are events which, if they become large enough to remind us of our precarious tenancy, will send sympathetic vibrations through the ether. But the normal changes and aberrations of the season are not widely noticed. For home listeners, the weather reports have the same value as our own daily forecasts, though the evidence to be found in such journals as Punch leaves an impression that they are received with scepticism. An anticyclone or a cold front has a practical meaning for those who have to decide whether, to go out with a raincoat, but their interest depends obviously on proximity. In seasons of disturbance, when depressions are more than usually complex, we may follow the forecasts with fascinated attention. At such times it is even possible to understand why meteorologists give names to cyclones, and plot their courses with the devotion of historians tracing the rise and fall of an empire. Most. of us, detached from the professional mood, are still able to have strong and personal feelings about the weather. And although in doing so we are perhaps claiming more importance in Nature than we are entitled to, it is an understandable attitude. Doctor Johnson would not agree that our spirits are at the mercy of climate; but people who know the Canterbury nor’westers, or who have noticed how quickly tensions can, develop when .the north wind is blowing across Wellington, have a different opinion. In all this, however, the relevant factor is personal involvement. Only one thing is less interesting than yesterday’s cold front; and that is the atmospheric situation on the other side of the world. Somebody else’s weather, unless it be phenomenal, is simply not news. ;