What's the weather like? by Elizabeth Kay

In the UK we tend to be very preoccupied with the weather. Which may seem strange, when we are not a country of great extremes. A few snowflakes are a talking point, and rain is a disaster when a cricket match is in jeopardy. The old joke about what to do in a drought; a lot of men in white walk onto a field, the shaman tosses a coin, and it starts to rain. We did have a real heatwave last summer, but we weren’t prepared for it and few houses have air conditioning. It’s just not needed normally – open the window for a bit. Of course, you may well need the central heating on instead for a day or two in August. We get fog, but not that often, we get ice, but not that often either. Which is why it is such a shock when we travel abroad and find out how well they cope with such disasters as a couple of centimetres of snow, or a bit of wind.

The public transport elsewhere always seems to function. If a bus is two minutes late in Tromsø, up in the Arctic, people look at their watches, shake their heads in dismay and make tutting noises despite the fact that the snow means you can’t even see across the road. If it’s 45⁰ in Morocco, they just stay inside in their nice cool houses which are designed for such eventualities. The houses in Greenland are designed for just the opposite, and are toasty warm. When I first went to Poland for Christmas in 1965, the tall ceramic stoves in the corners of the rooms were a miracle compared to the one bar electric fires at home, much cheaper and more efficient to run. The boardwalks in Costa Rica up in the rain forest meant that you go shopping without sinking up to your knees in mud, and the tarpaulin in the open truck in Zambia could be rapidly pulled over your head to shield you from raindrops that were so big they hurt. I liked the saying in Iceland, though. If you don’t like the weather, don’t worry. In five minutes’ time it will be completely different. And how true that was. We went into a café in bright sunlight, and when we came out we couldn’t even find our vehicle in the snowstorm.

            But it’s unusual weather that is so useful for a writer. It creates atmosphere; a cloudless sunny day makes for a romantic walk in the countryside, but dark clouds overhead suggest trouble. A thunderstorm is always good, but finding a way to make it original is harder. It’s been used so often. The the rumble of thunder that heralds the arrival of an assassin, the flash of lightning that illuminates the killer, the deluge that makes escape impossible. It’s by focusing on the tiny things that can really make a difference. Rain? The leaky gutter, lots of frogs, the overflowing drain. Snow? The footprints of a rat, the skidmarks on the road, the noses of the children pressed to the window panes, marvelling at such an unheard of event.

Cloud iridescence

            I did manage to see one very rare meteorological phenomenon in Costa Rica, however. Unfortunately I was white-water rafting, so I didn’t have a camera with me. Someone said, “What’s that?” pointing up into the sky. And we moved the boat to the edge of the river, and just watched. A rainbow appeared to come to life, and rippled and squirmed like a huge snake, changing colour as it went. First purple and blue, then green and yellow and orange. Nobody knew what it was. There was a great dark cloud, that reminded me of a cauliflower, and streaks of white cloud radiating out from it. The display went on for about twenty minutes, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. When we got back we heard that it had happened once before, when those witnessing it thought it heralded the End of Days. It’s called cloud iridescence. I do have one photo, taken by the cameraman following the boats so that he could film people falling the water, but although I’m pasting in a copy of it here, it doesn’t do the event justice at all.

Rainbows are pretty, although they been hijacked by the Woke community. Raindrops on spiders’ webs are worth a line or two, and the spray from waves on a headland in a storm are good. Frost can be more beautiful than snow, and ice patterns on window panes are excellent. Weather is mainly visual, although the hush during a snowstorm or fog can be spooky and rain beating on a tin roof as noticeable as the wind howling down a chimney. Don’t forget touch – I had spectacles iced to my face in Greenland, sunburn in Kenya and the wind blowing my hair into my eyes (as well as blowing down the tent) in Croatia.

Fog by the River Mole

 I have always wanted to see the Aurora Borealis, and I have had three attempts. Once in Iceland, where we saw nothing. Once in Greenland, where other members of the group went to a different hotel a few miles away, and got a splendid display. They showed me what they’d filmed on their phones. The other time was in Norway. The next hotel to ours had a Japanese party staying there, and they took it in shifts to keep watch all night every night. No one saw anything, and they went home. We gave up too; it was our last night, so we went out for dinner. As we came out of the restaurant my husband said, “What’s that?” which seems to be the standard alert for meteorological happenings. We only had a few minutes, which looked fairly unspectacular but came out far more green in the photos.

I know using the weather to set the scene is often called the Pathetic Fallacy, but that’s when you attribute human feelings to phenomena. The miserable rain, the angry clouds, the cruel sea. Personally, I don’t mind it. I’d welcome a spot of cheerful sunshine.