Blust'ry in Brill

I enjoy and admire the BBC. That said, Her Majesty's custodians of media are complete cretins when it comes to forecasting the weather. I've heard it said that there is more art than science in predicting the weather 4 or 5 days out, but do we not have the technology to accurately forecast today's and tomorrow's weather??

? ? ?

In Canada, when the friendly folks at Env Can tell us that for the next 3 days there's an 80% chance of morning showers followed by sunny breaks in the afternoons, you can pretty much expect such conditions (If you're cycling to work, wear your rain gear). Here in Oxford, the forecast for one day out is, I'd wager, incorrect some 50% of the time. So what is the point of providing a five day forecast when the information is no more reliable than the ask-the-magic-eight-ball method? My only explanation is that the laughable forecasts satiate the British townsfolk's appetite for all things weather-related. They do love to chat about the weather here, perhaps because it's so varied - you can never count on things staying the same for more than 2 days (unlike, say, the British class system, the love of fox hunting, and the distrust of "continentals").

Take the other day. It was rather sunny in the morning and was forecast to continue as "sunny intervals". It was a bit cold (3 degrees) and rather windy, but I decided to dress appropriately and go for a 2 hour cycle northeast of Oxford. Lovely Miss Muppet had given me some wonderful windproof gloves for Christmas - they are a great blessing to my arctic-no-body-fat-fingers! I was riding through a beautiful rural area, with quiet winding roads that cross the counties of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. There are lovely old villages that spring up now and then, with quaint names like Islip, Charlton-on-Otmoor, Elsfield and Wotton-Underwood. The town of Brill, atop a hill that savaged my legs when I ventured there with the triathlon club, is apparently considered to be the main inspiration for Tolkien's town of Bree ("Brill" being an anglicized version of the Welsh "Bree Hill", which literally means "hill hill" - thanks Nutmilk for the great book!!)

... anyway, the weather. As I said, it was sunny and was supposed to stay that way. This is the same day forecast, let me remind you. But what's that coming across the fields, driven by a northern gale? Why, it's a massive black cloud that might be ridden by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse! Soon enough, rain and freezing sleet are blasting sideways across the road in front of me. It was like a big chunk of the Irish Sea decided to fly over the hills of northern Wales, pick up some wind, turn to ice particles, then blast down on south-central England. I had little choice but to continue riding through the sleet, cursing the BBC. Cretins!! Thankfully, the storm moved on within 10 minutes, and the gusting wind dried me off as I rode home.

I will now be more cautious when relying on the BBC forecasts.