When The Public Become Experts

[AderynCoch]

"Residents are being urged to wrap up warm as winter kicks in just in time for December and the Christmas rush."

what? why? would you forget? who is doing this 'urging' ? " oh no, nobody urged me to wrap up warm so i've gone outside in a t-shirt and got hypothermia"

aaaaagh!!!!

Right on! I remember seeing an example on Sky News in December 2005 when the news ticker was giving folks advice on wearing layers, drinking warm fluids and the like. If that's not cold-weather nannying I don't know what is.

[Polar Bear]

Ah yes, I have to say this annoys me more than anything else. Whenever I tell my friends that theres a risk of snow before the TV forecasts are saying anything, they always seem to say "No it wont, it never does" despite me being right about it most times. I don't understand why people do this?

"I don't understand why people do this? "

.....................ignorance and arrogance i reckon..... same principle is that everyone is a transport engineer/planner....

my reply to most on that is there is a science to everything we do, or how the world and nature works....

[greybing]

Oh so here we go, entries so far: perhaps we could start a Poll; the one that annoys you the most or something:

"It's been snowing in America. It always comes here afterwards."

"It's too cold to snow today."

"The weather can't make its mind up today."

"It always gets warmer before it snows."

"And there's worse to come." (on a weather forecast, when there clearly isn't)

"Rain turning to snow." (on a weather forecast)

When London gets its first snowflake its suddenly top news whilst parts of the country who have had significant or unprecedented snowfall for days fail even to get a mention.

"It's a blizzard outside!"

"Look… its a whiteout."

"Britain hit by the Big Freeze!" (or similar tabloid headings)

"Them clouds don't look snowy enough."

"They look like snow clouds."

"Bloody Scots, taken' our snow"

"At least it'll be mild…"

"But it's not been bad news for everyone." (cue pictures of kids mucking about in the park in news reports)

The january storm of 1987 being called a hurricane.

"It won't stick because the ground is too wet."

"Ice in November to bear a duck, the rest of the winter will be slush and muck."

"It won't snow, it's too early in the winter". (even said when it's still Autumn)

"I had to work from home today." (TRANSLATION: "I didn't want to travel to work today, so I stayed at home and had snowball fights all day.")

"The overuse of 1947, 1963, 1790 etc when trying to draw comparisons to the next cold spell. "

…coastal areas get less falling and lying snow because of the "salty sea air".

"Snow is the worst thing since World War II."

"It's going to rain all day, that sky looks full."

"Well the weathermen never get it right." (but when they do it's never mentioned)

"When are we going to 'get' spring?" (often said by snow haters in the midst of winter, TRANSLATION: I am wimp who doesn't like the cold or appreciate the changing of the seasons, I wish the weather was the same every day)

People who insist on turning up the thermostat at home instead of just sticking an extra layer on.

When you visit a friend's house and they are complaining about it being cold inside the house and they can't keep warm (they are not ill or sick) and you are sat there sweltering.

"Lots of berries this year, must be a harsh winter on the way." (assumption that it must be true with no scientific grounding/old wives tale)

"Birds heading south for the winter earlier in the season, sign of a harsh winter on the way." (assumption that it must be true with no scientific grounding/old wives tale)

Exaggeration of 'Cold' on weather forecasts "It's -1c and BITTERLY cold!" Often tagging on the end "but it will feel like -10c."

When its hot "It's in the 80s today!" But if it's cold "Brr it's minus 5" - rather than say 23F. (an observation)

i see no mention of 'extremely mild',which is a logical absurdity.

Edited November 23, 2010 by greybing

[Thundery wintry showers]

It's an interesting point, the term "mild" seems to have lost its original meaning (i.e. "not severe") as far as winter weather is concerned, simply meaning "warm", and that's why we get the term "extremely mild" and reassurances of "at least it will be mild" bandied about when we have 90mph gusts and temperatures of 14C, despite the fact that as far as impacts on life are concerned such weather is anything but mild!

[Wivenswold]

This is really picky by the generic use of "They" as in "They have forecast snow for my area today". The "They" usually refers to their newspaper who have got the forecast from 'Global Climate Solutions' or another company that gets free advertising by making rash forecasts that papers pick up on (like the one in the Evening Standard under the erroneous headline 'Met Forecast sunny day for royal wedding').

When 'British Forecast Services' (or similar) turn out to be rubbish at forecasting the "they" then becomes the real Met Office in conversation, as in "They always get it wrong".

[Thundery wintry showers]

It often seems that the Met Office gets most of the flak for being "they" regardless of who "they" are, e.g. the sources (most notably Piers Corbyn) who rubbished the MetO for predicting a freeze-up in winter 2005/06, when in fact their winter 2005/06 forecast was arguably the most accurate seasonal forecast that they ever made, with the only significant inaccuracy being that north and west Scotland ended up milder than they predicted. The reason may well have been that other media sources predicted a freeze-up and/or misquoted the Met Office as doing so.

[Upgrade]

in my day in the winter we walked all along the wall tops to get to school, there were 10 foot drifts...... we sat on top of lampposts warming our bums the snow was so deep...

was a favourite of my granny.....

Edited November 25, 2010 by jimmyay

[ZONE 51]

what about february 1991 'the wrong kind of snow' ? .

When temperatures are are well below freezing(0c) at for example -5c then the snow is finer dusty or sugar type, this is what happened, and it got into rail electrics and things, the normal snow would be the flakes we are used to, this piles up quite quick, if the 91 was'The right kind of snow' it would have been deeper!

Am i right on all this?

[Wivenswold]

Just noticed that. I worked on the railway and that was a very unfortunate quote. The BR Director should have said an "unusual type of snow". Unfortunately BR was fair game for the press back then.

What did for the railways then (and what was massively overlooked in the press) was that BR had spent billions building new trains in the late 80's. This was at a time of mild winters, warm summers and much talk of global warning. While most types of weather were considered in the design of the new trains, powdery snow events were rare enough to be ignored in testing. BR took a bullet for the global industry at a time when new technology was being introduced. Sadly, it probably sealed the fate of British Rail as it was broken up ready for Privatisation 3 years later.

Anyway, back to the topic.

Co-worker "Is it going to snow?"

Me "What? Today? No."

Co-worker "No, I mean before Christmas"

Me "Probably"

Co-worker "I thought you knew all about the weather?"