They’re a dour, ass-covering, bet-hedging lot, those weather folk, aren’t they? A bit like astrologers or tarot card readers?
Hiding behind non-active verbs like might, could and so on, they’re forever on the fence, at least to my mind. But that’s not why I write this post.
Why do they always describe the weather as ‘partly cloudy’? What’s wrong with them saying ‘partly sunny’? If it’s partly cloudy, the corollary of that must be that it’s also partly sunny. It’s the same thing isn’t it, only one is markedly more downbeat than the other?
Partly sunny is like ‘glass half full’, full of optimism, promise and possibility. Partly cloudy is your glass half empty, negative, pessimistic, defeatist.
That’s what I mean about weather forecasters being dour. They’ve allowed their language to limit our expectations and our moods.
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Indeed, the ‘glass-half-empty’ phrasing of the ‘partly cloudy’ forecast is odd, and I agree it’s overly pessimistic, but — on a related note — I wondered if you had ever looked into what is meant by the US-based forecasters’ approach of giving ‘chance of rain’ as a %?
It sounds scientific, and appears to take away the human ‘angle’ you refer to in your post, but in fact the truth of it is peculiar and inaccessible. I suggest you read-up about it PD, as I’m sure you’ll find it interesting, as did I….
Good work, as always 👍🏻
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Andy, thanks for commenting. I’ve always liked the US percentage approach. So if there’s a 70% chance of rain today, then for 10 days like this if I go out if will rain at some point on 7 of them. I might be interpreting that wrongly of course :-).
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Yeah there’s a bit more to it than that. The percentage is given as an average across the whole catchment, so a “60%” stated chance, that could be an 80% chance in one half of the catchment, and a 40% chance in the other — quite different prospects for cities in each part of the large catchment, I’m sure you’d agree!
It’s very complicated, but the ‘maths-ness’ of it appeals to me, and you too, I’ll bet. 😉
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