Reliability of English weather forecasts

As the weather forecast was good yesterday I thought I would use the E to go and see my Dad, a weekly visit, now he’s getting frail. Weather was fine, sun and a little cloud. 50 miles of varied roads, some dual, some single, some country lanes.

The journey back was something else. Driving along the A30, I encountered weather one normally associates with tropical climes, rain falling like a waterfall. Definitely a test for the 52 year old rubbers around my E’s doors and glass. Roads became river beds, running with silt and gravel laden streams, pooling into vast lakes of standing water on bends and dips in the road, made all the more hazardous by other traffic, farm tractors pulling trailers full of chopped up maize, trucks and slowcoach elderly car drivers creating spray, chicanes, and generally slow going.

Just as I was thinking is wasn’t such a good idea to make my E so filthy close to the end of the summer, into view coming the other way was a white OTS. I flashed, but I don’t know if he saw another E going the other way.

I wonder if he had seen the same weather forecast?

Thee are only two British weather forecasts.

“Showers with bright periods.”

“Bright periods with showers.”

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In Manchester the saying is:

“If you can see the Pennines it is going to rain. If you can’t see the Pennines it is raining”

I see it’s the same harvesting season there: almost all the field corn in my area–and we’re talking tens of thousands of acres–is being turned into silage.

Today, it is going to be 80F: by tomorrow afternoon?

A high of 24F.

:confounded:

Hmmm 24F? Is there a home game at Mile High?

I recall an Andy Capp:

Where’d you go on your hols Andy?

Spent a week in the Lake District.

Rain much?

Only twice. Once for three days… and once for four.

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why don’t they just say “possible periods of rain…” and they will always be correct.

On my 14 days in England, I got rained on every day at least some of the day, even if they started out bright, sunny and cloudless.

I don’t know what you guys are talking about. The wife and I spent two weeks in Great Britain (Ireland, Wales, England) in June of 2018, and in two weeks we had 30 minutes of light drizzle. That’s it.

I realize of course that we were just stoopid lucky and that two weeks without rain in GB is akin to winning the lottery. We’re going back to London (and Brussels) in November so I’m sure we’ll get the full compliment of rainy days.

“…On my 14 days in England, I got rained on every day at least some of the day,…”

Probably sound like heaven to someone from the Southwest USA.