Why is the weather being over-dramatised?
I live in a part of the world where in wintertime, high winds become a frequent occurrence. This has always been the case.
But now, high wind events are being given names. And they are making big news headlines.
The latest one has been christened Storm Caroline, and she will strike tomorrow.
There is something odd about this. Note the contrast in the above screen grab, between the dramatic brilliantly-coloured storm headline and the little weather forecast snippet in the top right corner. When you click on that weather snippet, you read that the local wind speed is expected to reach a high of… wait for it…
52 miles per hour!
This is what Storm Caroline looks like – according to the MetOffice. It doesn't look too stormy to me. I'm confused. What am I missing?
The headlines – on the MetOffice website, on the BBC and in the newspapers, make it look as if a hurricane is about to hit. They've even managed to make the weather patters look like a weird scary ghoul!
It always used to make me laugh when the weather forecaster on the Scottish news said "It's going to be breezy", while the weather chart in the background showed 90 mile-per-hour winds.
When big snowdrifts were blocking the roads in the Scottish Highlands, the weather forecaster would calmly describe it as "wintry".
But now it seems things are changing. These days, high winds are given top billing in the news, and hurricane-style names. Like the depression forecast for tomorrow. I've been monitoring those high winds on the online weather forecasts for the past week, planning my weekend hillwalks. I even mentioned it to a friend yesterday, who was talking about doing a hillwalk tomorrow. I said I thought it wouldn't be a good idea, with winds set to gust up to 95mph at altitude.
Nothing out of the ordinary at this time of year, but best not to be on the top of a mountain.
Then this morning I went onto the MetOffice website, and saw this:
My first thought was "Oh no! The sky is falling in!"
Then I realised the headline was just referring to the high winds that have been quietly sitting in the forecast for the past few days.
Seriously...
While it's a good thing to warn people that high winds are coming, this kind of extreme stormification seems pretty over-the-top to me.
Do high winds need to be personified?
It's as if the elements are being built up as something big and terrifying, like the weather gods in ancient times.
Only the priests, the ones with special esoteric knowledge, were believed to be able to communicate with the weather gods, and this gave them great powers over the people.
Think about it.
If you're in Scotland tomorrow, stay safe. It's probably best not to climb any mountains, and try to stay away from big trees.
But don't think it's anything out of the ordinary. Storm Caroline is not a hurricane and it's not going to destroy your house.