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Old January 15th 18, 12:16 PM posted to uk.sci.weather
Graham P Davis Graham P Davis is offline
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Default SE-centric forecasting from the BBC Weather Centre

On 15/01/18 07:59, Norman Lynagh wrote:
Len Wood wrote:

On Sunday, January 14, 2018 at 8:01:04 PM UTC, Norman Lynagh wrote:
Tudor Hughes wrote:

On Saturday, 13 January 2018 12:25:38 UTC, Col wrote:
On 13/01/2018 10:59, Norman Lynagh wrote:
Stav Danaos has just posted a summary of the weather for next
week on Twitter. It says

-----------------------------------------
Turning colder as we head into next week with gales and a
mixture of sunshine and blustery showers - some heavy and
wintry in nature with snow on northern hills
-----------------------------------------

It all depends on your definition of 'northern hills' but I
think it would be reasonable to assume that meant hills in
the northern half of the country. Looking just at mainland
Great Britain it is 552 miles from Bournemouth to Thurso. The
half-way point is around Penrith. Surely, therefore, the
term 'northern hills' should mean only Scotland and the far
north of England. I suspect that during next week snow will
fall on hills very much further south than that. 'The North'
doesn't start at the Chiltern Hills :-(

I used to get into trouble on here complaining about London
centricity so I don't do it anymore

I guess 'Northern Hills' depends on how you define 'The North'
and that generally means Northern England, which of course
means areas south of your mid point of Penrith. The hills
around here count of course as would the southern Pennines. But
what of the Peak District, would you consider that all to be
'The North', even it's most southern extent?

Another vague thing is 'snow on high ground'. How high is 'high'
ground? 1000ft certainly, but I'm at 500ft, is that 'high'
ground, well it's high*ish* I suppose. I'd say 750ft was the
cut off point. Granted they do sometimes quote heights in
forecasts but of course a lot of people probably don't really
know how high they live anyway.


To me, a southerner, "Northern Hills" means The Pennines, The
Lake District and the North York Moors. Further north than that
it should be labelled Scotland. Failure to do so is lazy and
slapdash, not for the first time, not by a long chalk. Another
example of this throwaway attitude is Phil Avery telling us that
as far as temperatures in England go "4 to 9 should just about
cover it". Well, it would, wouldn't it, in the recent synoptic
setup. Give us a forecast, clever clogs, not a climatological
statement.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.

If the forecast is intended to refer to England then I would agree
with you, Tudor, but the forecast that I highlighted at the start
of this thread was, I assume, intended to refer to the whole of the
UK. The term 'Northern Hills' should therefore be rather different
in that context. Living, as I do, in the southern end of the
Pennines I certainly do not consider that I live in 'The North'. As
I said earlier in this thread, the way the Met Office splits the
Country up puts Tideswell in the East Midlands.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
--- The Northern Hills to me are Dartmoor.

Len
Wembury, SW Devon coast

----------------------------------------------------------------------
---


Therein lies the problem. 'Northern Hills' is really a meaningless term
unless it is defined.


Also can happen with east-west divides when metcasters [that word is in
my 1977 dictionary] are sloppy with how they split up the country - i.e.
all of the time.

Some years ago I listened to a forecast which detailed the weather for
"eastern coastal districts" and then went on to give the weather for
Wales, SW and NW England. It then ended that section so that all of
Central Southern England and the Midlands, along with most of SE
England, East Anglia and Eastern England were left without a forecast.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks. Web-site: http://www.scarlet-jade.com/
"Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it
is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion." [Col. Flagg]
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