23 April 2005

Weather



My American friends want to know if it will rain on their house. No problem there is a street-level Doppler radar in the area! 3D computer graphics produce convincing cross-sections of a state and a theoretical camera view shows us puddles on the sidewalk.

In the UK a weather forecaster points at an amateurish chart. Crude symbols of clouds are slapped on huge areas of England. That seems too general but is probably accurate. We live under permanently grey skies in the UK.

Most of our weather is very bland. We have light breezes, the USA has twisters and hurricanes. The US Weather Channel says it's a warm spring day, for the British that's probably the hottest blazing summer day we'll get. We wear T-shirts and shorts on holiday, the locals wear jeans and jumpers. You could say we stand out!

Fanfares blast when there is a single snowflake recorded south of Scotland. A North American winter can last for six months. Such a large continent is bound to have violent extremes of weather which I imagine you get used to. This tiny island is bathed in the gentlest of elements. Safer of course but dreadfully dull. I wish we had proper weather!

2 comments:

Jen said...

Well, you know in Oklahoma the weather is prime time TV, especially this time of year when the storms come through. People will sit and watch the weatherman with his double doppler radar or whatever because they interrupt regularly scheduled programs!

Perfect Virgo said...

Jen - you are in prime storm territory aren't you. The weatherman has real weather to present. Over here the guy just says, "sunshine and showers, temperatures near the seasonal norm." We all know that anyway so it's a waste of time!