Have you ever noticed that weather forecasters have a rather particular set of terms they use in producing forecasts? In Australia, weather forecasts are almost completely made up of terms such as 'scattered showers', 'isolated thunder-storms', 'moderate to fresh south-west breeze', 'warm to hot with an afternoon sea-breeze,' etc. It's a bit hard to convey in a series of snippets, but the language is quite precise and formal. When you go outside, you can quite easily correlate the language with what you see; if the forecast says 'scattered showers', you can go outside, look around, and see the odd dark cloud with water coming out the bottom and they are, indeed, scattered. Today's forecast for Adelaide is not a bad example:
A shower or two. A cool to cold day with light winds, tending moderate southwestin the afternoon.I can read that and tell exactly what the day will feel like in Adelaide.
I had assumed that this was common to weather forecasters everywhere, but this turns out not to be the case. British weather forecasters are rather less formal about their forecasts. Indeed, they often sound a bit embarrased by the weather (and with the summer we are having, fair enough). They use phrases like 'still the odd shower around, though essentially much drier,' 'feeling rather cool again,' 'unseasonably strong winds across the Southern counties,' 'occasionally breezy,' 'a fair chance of persistent rain,' and, my favourite, 'disappointingly cold.' All taken from the forecast for Bristol for the next two weeks, I'm afraid.
