Snow on the way?

This week, I was talking to a young man who had recently moved to the UK from South Africa. Discussing the differences in the weather between the two countries, he said he’s been told that because we’ve had a hot summer and a warm autumn, we will have a long cold winter with plenty of snow. I’m not sure if many people believe this - I hear similar statements frequently - but I know from experience that there is no correlation between the two. It’s a little like the expression “Red sky at night...”, which has no basis in fact at all. It is as worthless as saying that Manchester United will lose next week because they won last week.

I put the young man straight. I then told him not to believe what is often reported in some newspapers - you know - the ones that are always headlining property price booms. October last year, I remember one such newspaper claiming that the Met Office had forecast that we were to be gripped by three months of severe arctic conditions, with blizzards and heavy snowfalls causing widespread disruption. The Met Office protested that they had said no such thing, but it was too late - the papers had already been sold to the gullible, sensation-hungry public. The tabloid editors laughed all the way to the bank without having to use a single squirt of de-icer all winter – well, hardly any.

It turned out to be one of those rare winters that gave us no snow whatsoever, other than a couple of light sprinklings on high ground that were visible if you squinted hard enough. My wife and I were a little disappointed, as I’d bought us both a pair of sledges. It was one of the presents I bought her every time she had been poisoned with an evil dose of chemotherapy – a chemo present, as we called it. We are now hoping to use them for the first time this winter, but no matter what anyone predicts well in advance, we’ll just have to wait and see. We might as well check our horoscope.

Snow, in fact, is one of the hardest things for the Met Office to predict, as there are just so many factors and variables that can influence where, and if, it will fall.

There is one theory, though, that I am not so cynical of, and one that does seem to bear some notion of logic and reason. I sometimes hear it said that the weather experienced in eastern USA is likely to affect us a short time later. Now I can believe that one. I have seen such predictions come true, not always, but often enough to make me consider it a more accurate forecast than one that is used to generate tabloid sales. And it makes sense. All weather systems have to go somewhere before they eventually wither away.

They’ve had four feet of snow in New York this week. I’ll think I’ll dig those sledges out. You never know :)