What The Heck Has Happened To The Jet Stream?
Not the jet stream itself, of course - I'm sure it's still happily wending its meandering path in the upper atmosphere high above us, as always.
But until about 12-18 months ago, we used to get a regular update on the BBC TV weather bulletins, telling us in some detail how it was behaving, and how it was predicted to wriggle about over the next few days. Basically, with clever computer graphics, it showed that if it was to the north of the country, it was fending off the downrush of cold and wet weather from the north, whereas if it was to the south, the opposite was the case. This gave us an added insight into why the weather was doing what it was doing, and what we could expect it to do in the near future. It seemed to be a rather more reliable pointer to how conditions were likely to change, than the short-range regional forecasts.
But in the last year or so, the BBC seem to have decided that it has no value, and abandoned that aspect of meteorology, and now one never hears about the jet stream any longer.
Over to you, Michael Fish. and everybody else out there!