Always take the weather

There's a bit of a kerfuffle in the Daily Telegraph today where Devon tourism managers are criticising weather forecasters for undue pessimism (that is forecasting heavy rain when there won't be much. I'm aware that anglers often want some rain). I think there is something in this.

Just before going up to the Oykel - a spate river - I looked at the weather outlook in the Telegraph funnily enough.

There were black clouds over the area, some of them with rain underneath, on every day of the coming week. I was rubbing my hands in anticipation.

In the event we had blistering sunshine the whole week. I couldn't have changed my fishing dates in this instance - besides, as the report said, the fishing was pretty good from the previous week's spate - but suppose I had been going to Scotland on spec, in the hope of catching some good spate conditions towards the end of the week? The forecasters should own up to the imperfections of forecasting beyond a day or two and admit to the imprecisions of their science.

Saturday: looking at the weather today the Telegraph map is again dominated by rainclouds with showers, only you can also see a few little suns poking from behind the clouds. At a glance you would think it would be pouring down everywhere. In reality there has been the odd light shower on a dull day - no sun. I think the problem lies with the symbols - they give the impression of heavy rain when it simply isn't happening.

N.B. If you are at all interested in weather lore you might be interested in some additions I have made to my archive, covering notes on Bill Foggitt, the Thirsk weather sage.