What a dilemma for the media. On the one hand we have the farcical Copenhagen Climate Conference struggling to establish what to believe, who to believe, who to blame, what to charge, what capital can be made and who should take the credit.
On the other hand we have ‘Extreme’ weather conditions being experienced in the UK at the moment. Extreme my arse!
Wikipedia defines Extreme weather as: “Extreme weather includes weather phenomena that are at the extremes of the historical distribution, especially severe or unseasonal weather.” The met office define it as: well nothing really. It is a term they use when talking about the ‘extreme’ of any weather over a given period. So, the extreme was 2″ of rainfall in Manchester and 0″ in Cardiff today. It is not a measure to describe either good or bad weather. The Met Office use the term ‘Severe’ for that.
The lowest recorded temperature in the UK was -27.2C in 1895 Braemar (Aberdeenshire); in England, -26.1C 1982, Newport (Shropshire).
So what have we? It is 20th December, next week is the shortest day of the year, (does that make it an ‘extreme’ day?), The white stuff falling out of the sky is called ‘snow’ and there’s a severe weather warning which says, “Heavy snow showers may give accumulations of 2 to 5cm and there is a risk of 10 to 15cm over hills.” For the sake of the BBC, ITV and Sky, that’s NOT extreme.
Classic quote from the ‘outside’ weather girl as I write, “There has been 20cm of snow, that’s 8 inches, and if you look behind me you can see just how deep that is!” Actually you could. It was just about reaching the top of the kerb on the road. Big Deal!
How do we react? We close schools, we close airports, we cancel trains, close the channel tunnel and park up on motorways.
Then again, it did come as a complete surprise didn’t it. I mean, who ever heard of snow at Christmas, (sorry, Winterfest)?
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Here here, Britain comes to a stand still because the media put the frighteners on. Having grown up in Wales Im less than impressed with our “extreme” snowfall, couldn’t even go sledging in it for christ sake! How did we all cope in the days before gritters? we walked, thats how! But we are above that now, we have congratulated ourselves on our vast technological development. Until it snows.