A clearer outlook

It’s a thankless task being a weatherman. While an accurate forecast barely causes a murmur, get it wrong and you may as well be personally responsible for whatever climatic disaster has befallen your audience. If any reminder was needed, just rewind two decades to Michael Fish’s infamous assertion that a hurricane was the last thing on the cards.

Fortunately, things have moved on a bit since the events of 1987. Today’s meteorologists have at their disposal an arsenal of sensors, satellites, computers and numerical techniques that provide a more detailed picture than ever before on what is happening in our atmosphere and what is likely to occur in the future.

It’s just as well, because as the technology has become more complicated, so, some would claim, have our weather patterns. And with climatic aberrations likely to become even more commonplace as the impact of global warming is felt, our forecasters must fight an increasingly advanced battle against the elements in their efforts to help us plan our daily lives.