How to forecast the weather

in one easy lesson?

Ask an elderly farmer. He will probably look at the sky, turn his head into the breeze (if there is one) and then tell you, "May be fine" or "May be rain coming up" or "Another scorcher".  He will probably be right.

There are, rightly, complaints at present about how inaccurate the BoM has been. The BoM being the Bureau of Meteorology. There are, rightly, complaints about the continuing string of "forecasts" that deal with global warming and long range El Nino, La Nina forecasts. They may or may not be accurate but they do not deal with "What is the weather going to be like tomorrow?" or "What is the likely forecast for the wedding at the end of the month?"

I do not know much about how weather is forecast but surely it is possible in this day and age to tell us with reasonable accuracy that it will be fine or that it will rain tomorrow - and what the temperature is likely to be within two or three degrees of accuracy.  We need this because we have largely lost the ability to work it out for ourselves.

My mother could do it with more accuracy than the BoM. She would look out the window in the morning and tell us, "Take your raincoats" or "You'll need a jumper today" (sweater to those of you in North America). Of course she was caught out more than once but we usually listened to her because she was usually right - certainly far more right than wrong. 

It was not unusual to hear our mother talking to a farmer about the likely weather forecast. They would discuss rainfall, heat, cold, the likelihood of a storm and whether the wind was likely to do any damage.  We listened because, somehow, they knew.

It seems younger farmers have lost that skill. They rely on the BoM and if the BoM is getting it wrong then it can have disastrous financial consequences. The price of meat will plummet in rain or go sky-high in drought. The price of tomatoes will go through the roof of the storm damaged glasshouses in which they grow and the cherries will split, the apricots will cook in the unexpected heat. It may not be possible to change the weather but measures can be taken to guard against the worst of the likely damage - if we know in advance.

The idea of foretelling the future is never something I have been comfortable with but if they can learn to foretell the weather with a greater degree of accuracy it might help. I just hope they have it wrong again and that we won't have the coming week of high temperatures.