Friday, 23 August, 2002

Our country columnist John Sheard asks if the Met Office "experts" realise the damage that inaccurate weather forecasts do to the tourism industry.

I AM writing this on holiday in Cumbria as a rainstorm rages outside and I wonder if the river down the lane will break its banks again. Yesterday's weather forecast said we would have showers and bright spells.

On Thursday, I spent a few hours in my veg patch in the Dales, risking the heavy rain which had been forecast to hurl down for most of the day. I had to drench myself in aftersun when I got home because I was in danger of severe sunburn. In the southern Dales at least, it had been a lovely day.

Last night, I was silly enough to raise the question of inaccurate weather forecasts with an old friend who has invested a very large sum of money into an hotel, restaurant and pub complex. He nearly snapped my head off.

Waiting for the rain to stop

"If only those buggers would realise the damage they do to businesses like this when they get it totally wrong," he fumed. "On Thursday, with the kids still on school holiday and a Bank Holiday weekend coming up, we should have had a cracking day. But they forecast heavy rain and virtually no-one turned up."

Now I am no expert in meteorology or climatology and I realise that accurate weather forecasting is very difficult in areas like the Dales and the Lake District, which have many tiny "micro-climates" caused by hills and other factors.

But I am convinced, as are many countryfolk with a keen eye for predicting the weather from the look of the sky or the feel of the wind, that in recent years, the accuracy of weather forecasting has gone from bad to worse.

Yet this, of course, has been the time when instead of using experience, the Met Office has had the benefit of satellite and computer technology. Simultaneously, there has been the phenomenon of global warning, which has undoubtedly changed old weather patterns.

However, I cannot escape that growing suspicion that our weather forecasters are now more interested in entertaining city folk wondering if they should take a mac or a brolly to work rather than tending the needs of people whose livelihoods or even safety can be seriously threatened by the weather: farmers, fishermen, rural businessmen like my aforementioned friend, walkers, climbers, pot-holers and the like.

Now I am not suggesting that the Met Office is doing this deliberately: Michael Fish will no doubt regret for ever that he failed to mention the hurricane that devastated southern England some years ago.

What needs to be done about this needs expert advice far beyond my capabilities but there if one thing the Met men and women could do to make country life easier: they could openly admit that they are not quite sure what is going to happen so that some tourists would risk a trip to the country just in case.

In other words, tell the truth and admit that theirs is a very inexact science indeed. Or, alternatively, they could hang a bunch of seaweed outside the window…