Ian Currie wrote:
I have heard several references of late on forecasts I quote " now a very
cold Continent". Well this is not really so.
Current temperatures mid afternoon Warsaw 1C, Berlin 1C, to the southeast
Budapest at 1C, Vienna 1C and to the north east Helsinki minus 2C. Moscow is
chilly with minus 17C and even lower in parts of the city but as yet this
air is some distance from us.
Now similar references were made in January 1987 and things were a little
different- Helsinki minus 30C, Copenhagen minus 13C, Berlin minus11C,
Prague minus 17C, Moscow minus 27C, Budapest minus 17C, Munich -16C etc at
lunchtime on the 12th. Now that was cold.

Ian Currie -Coulsdon
www.Frostedearth.com

Yes, Ian, I heard Philip Avery say those very words on R4. He
must know that they are not true, so why did he say it? The awful
thought occurs that he does *not* know it. No, can't be. The answer
must be that he knows that most people know the continent is colder
than Britain in winter and as the wind will be coming from that
direction he'd better say the continent is cold even if, for the
continent, it isn't at all so. We are being talked down to in factual
matters now let alone in questions of style, eg the gushing babytalk
that many forecasters use. They're rubbish and I get a feeling they
know they're rubbish but only because they're told to be.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.