The dumbing down of the weather
FOR MANY years media presentations of weather conditions were summarised in a simple map, showing isobars and main weather fronts, accompanied by a concise description on a regional basis, with a forecast statement for the near future. This information was well understood by a range of people with a modicum of education in everyday life. Regular watching of TV and reading newspaper forecasts provided me with the ambition of pursuing a career where I was involved in meteorology. But some time ago both media and printed format presentations switched to using the now universal hieroglyphic weather symbols, which when scattered over a small-scale map can give only a vague impression of actual and forecast conditions.
The main driver for this change came after the serious flood events of 1998-2002 when the Government decided that there was a need to improve awareness. This has led to the present glut of forecast apps giving weather predictions for several days ahead, summarised into a single hieroglyph, which are widely regarded as being nothing more than guesses.
The whole piece is well worth reading, both for what Dent says about dumbing down weather forecasts, but also the more general trend of ignoring the complexities of the past in favour of a distorted but politically convenient present.
Within this time frame of the last 12,000 years, there have been numerous exceptional events. There is indisputable geological and geomorphological evidence of major sea-level changes, inundations and major changes to river courses. Because nature is non-stationary, such events have occurred in recent decades as well as in the far past. For instance the North Sea flooding of January 1953 was just one of a series of similar catastrophic events, such as the storm that brought about the near-destruction of Dunwich, Suffolk, in the 14th century. According to documentary evidence, there were several major floods throughout the Mediaeval period causing thousands of deaths in the Low Countries.
5 comments:
"Presentism" certainly seems to be a thing, but I wonder how much of the weather we need to know about in the UK. Sailors and maybe farmers needed to know certain details, but for the rest of us there was actually little point. You got wet, or stayed dry, grumbled or enjoyed your holiday, and nobody died. There was nothing you could do about any of it, beyond overcoats and umbrellas. It seems to be yet another attempt to preoccupy and worry us with uncertainty and the pervasive sense that we ought to be happier and better informed than we are.
As far as I can tell they've dumbed it down to match the critical facilities of those who believe them.
@Sam: when we lived in Edinburgh we enjoyed driving to the West Highlands with hill-walking in mind. We were keen to get weather forecasts. We needed to know that we could cross the hills in each direction, and enjoy our walking without much risk of suffering from exposure. Unfortunately the Friday afternoon forecast for Sunday afternoon was rarely good enough to be helpful.
Mind you, our interest for winter weekends was rather limited since my Saturday afternoons would be used playing rugby and my Sunday mornings were spent coaching urchins. So we'd head nor'west only if I was carrying an injury that stopped me playing but still allowed me to walk.
However after I stopped playing then winter weekends became of interest again. I can remember two occasions when the forecast didn't seem too bad yet the snow made us turn back before we'd even crossed the Highland Line. In other words the Friday afternoon forecast for Friday evening was no good.
dearieme:
Yes, the Scottish Highlands are one of those places where the weather can kill you. We got back from Loch Duich a couple of weeks ago, and watched the weather very carefully, even in August.
Jannie - I think you are right, it was probably only very few who ever took an interest in the detail.
Sam and dearieme - even in Derbyshire we've been caught out by unexpected snow in the hills or weather which was colder, wetter and more severe than forecast.
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