1. And what of the weather?
Russell Grenning
Whether you are in Brisbane, Boksitogorsk or Buzen, the weather is always a nice
little conversation opener once you have got past the “hello/good morning/good
night/hey you, yes you” stage.
It can be something as boringly banal as “Bloody awful weather, isn’t it” when all
around you is being flattened by torrential rain and high winds or mildly inquisitorial
such as “Do you think it will rain tomorrow?”
I’ve discovered that it is more likely to elicit some sort of response than almost
anything else and, for that reason, I have abandoned my previous conversation-opener
when I asked total strangers about the likelihood of new interpretations of the works
of William Cornyshe. You would be astounded how few people know about poor old
Bill who was Entertainments Officer in the Courts of Henry V11 and Henry V111.
The people running schools have lot to answer for, don’t they?
To be honest I only started employing the Cornyshe opening gambit when my
previous favourite “Hey there, fancy a bit?” became too too embarrassing with the
onset of maturity. In any case, the Cornyshe tactic could be used universally whereas
its predecessor was understandably limited to those persons who presented a pleasing
visage.
Anyhow, to get back to the weather.
I don’t ask for a lot in this life and, by strange coincidence, my wish has been granted
and it is not bloody much that I have received. I am a simple man, content with simple
pleasures.
Last weekend the plan was to invite a few chums around for a good old BBQ which
would allow me to demonstrate my culinary skills. It’s not Masterchef but it will do,
especially given the sort of people I usually attract. None, for example, know the
slightest thing about Bill Cornyshe so they are hardly likely to expect their repast to
be of five Michelin Stars standard, are they?
Needless to say, one needs to plan ahead for these things and I never fail to be
surprised at how busy some very ordinary people are. More or less polite refusals
come with reasons such as having to wash the hair, take the cat to the vet or having to
be on hand for an important telephone call. All very likely, especially when the BBQ
event is three months away, isn’t it?
So I consulted the Weather Bureau for some indication of what the weather would be
like in our neck of the woods on the intended Big Day. Funnily enough they couldn’t
actually tell me what I wanted to know yet I’m expected to believe the same lot when
they grandly announce that the temperature will be one degree warmer in a hundred
years. As if I care.

2. I’m old enough by the way to remember that back in the 1970s really important
scientists were telling us that the planet was actually freezing, not warming.
Even the day before the Big Day there was an unsettling uncertainty about what the
morrow might hold. The forecast was hedged about with weasel words like “likely”
and “expected” and “anticipated”. What was certain was that there was no certainty.
It got me thinking about weather forecasting. I’m a bit of a Renaissance man and my
tastes in intellectual pursuits are Catholic.
Frankly weather forecasts on the tellie are complete wastes of time in my opinion. We
get either an earnest middle aged man or a bright bubbly young lass – the type you
used to see on page three of certain tabloid publications – standing in front of a map
of our wide brown land which is covered with wriggly lines and what I think are
representations of clouds.
Some wave around a stick like some demented orchestra conductor and babble on as
if they know what they are saying about the southern oscillation index, synoptic
charts, highs and lows, the variability index and all the rest. Incidentally, did you
know that a trough is different to a ridge or a low? Well you do now and that alone is
reward enough for reading this far.
There is even a “Weather Channel” on the TV and how wonderful that must be! I
imagine a lovely young couple sitting around rooted to the screen and one saying to
the other, “Well, I’ll be blowed my dear, have you seen the temperature in Chad?
Poor blighters must be sweating, what?” and adding with a knowing chuckle, “I bet
they wished they were in Bolivia!”
So off I went to the Bureau of Meteorology website and what a treasure trove of
information it is. I did like the snappy and engaging declaration that “Climate is what
you expect; weather is what you get” although I somehow got the feeling that they
were presenting an alibi in advance for forecasting failures.
They have a splendid glossary of terms used in the weather forecasting game starting
with Advection (“The sideways movement of air in the lower atmosphere due to
differences in air pressure”) to Zonal Flow which you can look up for yourself. I
shouldn’t have to do all the work. Oh, and “differences in air pressure” is known to
the uninitiated as “wind”.
I just loved the section headed “Weather Words”.
How could you not love this definition for example? “Drizzle: Fairly uniform
precipitation composed exclusively of very small droplets (less that 0.5 mm in
diameter) very close to one another.” What if some droplets are larger than the
official prescription? Does drizzle then become rain? Not necessarily. Once again, go
look it up; I’m providing the map here or should I say, the synoptic chart?

3. Under the “Sea and Swell” section there is a definition of “swell waves” which
doesn’t mean really nice waves as our American cousins might think. Did you know
that a low swell lasts less than eleven seconds? And that a short swell of moderate
height lasts less than eight seconds?
Funnily enough, a short heavy swell lasts exactly the same time so when you next
take the family to the beach take along a stopwatch. It’s good clean family fun for all
age groups and I predict it will take over from train-spotting and stamp collecting as
the entertainment wave of the future.
When engaged in this healthy fun pursuit you must remain alert to the possibility of
some potentially contentious debate. It could lead to one of your party flinging the
stopwatch into the sea thus causing a ripple and there is no official Met Bureau
definition for that.
Now here is a really serious one.
The Apparent Temperature/Heat Index is “an adjustment to the ambient temperature
based on the current humidity and wind speed, designed to be a measure of the
discomfort caused to an appropriately dressed adult, walking outdoors in the shade
by the current wind and humidity levels.”
Later, after I take some well-earned refreshment, I might run up and down our street
“appropriately dressed” in a variety of different yet tasteful costumes from budgie
smugglers to a heavy fur coat just to see if there is any difference in my discomfort
level.
Then again, perhaps I won’t. The neighbours have more than enough to talk about.
I was just a lad at the time but I remember that lots and lots of work went into
switching from the Fahrenheit scale to the Celsius scale and the nation embraced this
innovation in September, 1972. Actually it was the only exciting thing that happened
during the McMahon Government so we were all jolly lucky that the Whitlam
Government came along in December that year.
And some of these new terms are quite preposterous. I mean “El Nino”, for example.
When I was a boy it was a drought so why go all bloody multicultural about the
weather? And “Tsunami” – why a Japanese word for what used to be plainly called a
“Tidal Wave”?
It’s not as if the Japanese invented big waves although, to be fair, they have had more
than their fair share of them.
In fact, I happen to know that the Greek historian Thucydides first described a big
wave and what might have caused it in his racy tome “History of the Peloponnesian
War” which was published in 426 BC. As a matter of fact, it’s on my bedside table
and I can assure you absolutely that he didn’t demonstrate any fluency in Japanese at
all. It’s all Greek to me.

4. If only I had done all of this research sooner, I could have got involved in all the fun
and excitement of World Meteorological Day last March 23 and really raised a storm.
Look, all I want is a weather forecast for next weekend that is rather more spot-on
than spot-off. Is that to much to ask?
I don’t care what they do with their anemomters, barometers, hygrometers and
thermometers and everything else they use but, please, just get it right.
Yes, I’m planning another BBQ.