hassock of the week
wild weather at sea as experienced recently around britain.
which reminds me - i am simply loving the shipping forecast on the way to work in the morning. My alarm clock is fast and gets faster by about 5 minutes every month. As a result i'm waking up at about 4.55am at the moment and am in my car heading to work around 5.15am. for the first 10 minutes i listen to the shipping forecast which is simply lovely. An example is ' Forties Cromarty Forth Tyne Dogger. Southwest backing south. gale 8 to storm 10, veering west, severe gale 9 to violent storm 11. Rain, then squally showers. Poor, becoming moderate.'
They also say things like 'rough perhaps violent storm' at the end. i love the vagueness of that. you want more than 'perhaps' from experts.
read the latest reports here, although you really have to hear it to love it.
i wonder if for the modern age they should also do a shopping forecast giving reviews of shopping centres:
"meadowhall, blue water, northerly traffic queues. sales on. bargains possible. frustration mild to strong, perhaps unbearable"
or perhaps a sipping forecast:
"tea. strong. white. sugars 2, becoming sweeter. perhaps tepid".
Its called 'probabalistic' forcasting. The adjectives indicate the chance of the following thing happpening.
If it were done formally it would give you a percentage risk of it - say " .....30% chance of being violent". But did you know that you can draw a full weather map from Iceland to Spain from the forcast then make your own local focast, and much more: It really is a VERY cleaver system, if you know how to use it fully.