It’s hard to believe they get paid for what they do, those Met Office weathermen and women.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the forecast for Wednesday\/Thursday this week\u00a0indicated a low temperature of\u00a0 minus 6\u00baC and a high of 0\u00baC. Admittedly, they adjusted it on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday – but even now they say today will have a high of 4\u00baC and a low of 0\u00baC. When I went out this morning it was 6\u00baC and it felt rather mild.<\/p>\n
The other thing was the snow. According to the forecast on the BBC as recently as last night we were destined to get more snow across the UK in a few hours this morning than the Alps gets in a whole season. Well, they were close: it rained a bit.<\/p>\n
Fair enough, some places did get snow. But it was slushy, wet snow and even the places ‘hardest hit’ (according to the BBC, which is treating it typically as a disaster rivalling the Asian Tsunami) could only show a few centimetres of it. You can always tell: cut to usual shots of violent little psychopaths – sorry, lovable kids – building dirty-looking snowmen with bits of grass and mud covering them, and sliding down grassy slopes with a few patches of a\u00a0grey, sleety covering on sledges.<\/p>\n
The best bit was\u00a0a couple of\u00a0old guys the BBC interviewed in North Yorkshire. One was a haulier:<\/p>\n
“Well, me and my son can’t get to work so we’re losing money!” <\/p>\n
Yes, when you’re snowed in that’s what happens. Except you weren’t – you just decided that a few centimetres of slush was a\u00a0calamity of Biblical proportions and didn’t even try.\u00a0The other was a retired chap:<\/p>\n
“Well, I can never remember it being as bad as this!” <\/p>\n
I’d see a doctor about that memory problem, if I were you. North Yorkshire gets worse weather than this almost every year, and even I can remember numerous occasions when it was much worse, even here in the East Midlands. It was a couple of centimetres of slushy snow, for heaven’s sake, and it’ll be gone by tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Even schools were closed. I mean, in North Yorkshire!? It used to snow more than this every year when I was a kid, and nothing could cause schools to close (or shut early) except for very<\/em> thick fog – that meant we went home at 3pm instead of 4pm to avoid the traffic (they used a building as the gauge: if you couldn’t see it from across the playground then the fog was thick enough for an early close).<\/p>\n Cut to overhead shot of the ‘disaster area’ – fields with a lot of brown visible, and roads with clearly defined slush tracks where the traffic has freely navigated them for much of the day.<\/p>\n