There was a time, not that long ago, when you decided if you needed a coat by looking out of the window. If the sky resembled an unwashed zinc bucket, you reached for the jacket; if it shone with that pale, suspicious brightness peculiar to an English summer, you leave it on the peg and be prepared to get soaked through by three o’clock anyway.
Today, we live in an era of hyper-localised meteorological paranoia. Never mind the five heatwaves we’ve had this summer. My smartphone currently tells me, with chilling mathematical confidence, that there is a forty-seven per cent probability of light drizzle at four minutes past three. Not quarter past. Not “this afternoon.” Four minutes past three.
It makes me wonder what algorithm produced forty-seven per cent. Is there a computer in Berkshire debating whether to open a tiny virtual valve? And what, precisely, am I meant to do with this information at three minutes past three? Stand under a bus shelter in anticipation?
The fundamental flaw in modern meteorology is not its lack of precision, but its terrifying abundance of it. In attempting to quantify every passing shower down to the square metre, our weather services have stripped rain of its natural innocence. Rain used to be a background condition of British existence, like bad lukewarm tea or train cancellations. Now it is a scheduled event, complete with push notifications.
Consider the recent invention of the “yellow weather warning.” There was a time when a bit of wind was merely called “a bit of wind.” Now it is branded as an existential threat to normal life, requiring emergency broadcasts and solemn commentary on the evening news.
All that hot stuff we had this summer did feel somewhat strange. It was lovely, day after day of warm sunshine. But it didn’t feel like England. Far too much warm sunshine and blue sky. Consistent, as well, without the usual thunderstorms in between.
I miss the old weather. Not the actual climate, mind you, that has always been shit, but the unpretentious uncertainty of it all. Give me a wooden barometer shaped like a chalet where a little wooden woman steps out when it’s sunny and a little wooden man retreats inside when it’s damp. At least they had the decency not to send me a push notification about it.