Well, after all the hype, the snow finally arrived here overnight, we awoke to a covering deep enough to cause consternation to early morning motorists and delight, no doubt, to the children who’d been given the day off school in anticipation of the forecasted chaos.
I know the media have a responsibility to report the weather and I also appreciate that forecasting the weather is, despite the latest computer modelling, almost no further advanced than casting runes or hanging out a piece of seaweed, it can, and does change unpredictably. However, at the first sign of weather outside the seasonal norm the media go into overdrive, perhaps driven by the famous Michael Fish incident and not wishing to be caught with, proverbially, their trousers down we are bombarded with messages of doom and gloom, some of it fairly justified, some of it just panic inducing.
The weather is transient. Generally speaking what you get today is often not what you’ll get tomorrow, there are exceptions, they are rare, sometimes they are devastating but they don’t and won’t last for ever, Nature has a habit of evening things out. That said, not advising us of potentially serious impending weather issues would be irresponsible and reprehensible, so, I understand where they’re coming from. Perhaps the issue is not with the weathermen, weatherpersons, but more with our own inability to risk assess a situation and deal with it appropriately rather than rushing about in a blind panic.
Whatever, the weather is transient. Today the snow that had blown itself into every nook, cranny and crevice overnight is already giving way, receding from the fields, the roofs and the roadways, tomorrow the snowman standing majestically on the recreation field is likely to be no more than a puddle at best, the weather is transient.
North Dorset Wandering 