What's happening to the weather?

You can't have failed to notice the horrendous weather and flooding we experienced last Friday, which comes after a very dry spring with drought conditions.

Beaumaris harbour in the rain

A very swollen river Conwy

The weather forecasts always seem to err on the side of caution and rarely predict good weather if poor conditions have been prevalent for some time. Is it an art or a science? It was while mulling this over that I happened to come across this poem called "Weather" by Ambrose Pierce which I thought was very apt.


Weather

Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be--
Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,
With a record of unreason seldome paralleled on earth.
While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incandescent youth,
From the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth.
He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote
On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote--
For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
'Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow.'

Ambrose Bierce