"Weather With You" - Crowded House, 1991

I've had to learn a whole new set of descriptive weather terms since moving to the UK over two years ago. "Misty and murky" is one of my favorites. So is "close". Another one is "fine and dry". This morning, the woman giving the weather forecast on BBC 5 Live said the weather was going to be "grotty"! One of the all-time best is "unsettled". The weather is rarely "settled" over here, of course, but once I actually heard that term used as well! Sometimes it's even "blowy" -- and I'm not even sure I've spelled that one correctly!

If we moved to over Houston, I'm sure John would have some similar chuckles over the local use of the terms "hazy hot & humid" (sometimes shortened to "the three H's", which it almost always is in Houston), "precip", and the "feels-like temperature". John's mother recently noted that the percentage of humidity is rarely, if ever, given over here. In the States, we're used to hearing about the percentage of moisture in the air all the time...whether it's the usual 95+% in Houston or the extraordinarily low 20% or even less in far West Texas and New Mexico.

But it's the BBC weather maps which cause me the most grief. I simply cannot make heads or tails of them sometimes, despite the "helpful" guide to their weather symbols provided by the BBC themselves. It's always such a relief to get back to the US and see the kinds of weather maps I grew up with...maps like you can find on The Weather Channel's site. AHHHH...so easy on the eyes and on my old brain!

Meanwhile, it looks a little "unsettled" outside, here in Oxford. Better take a brolly when I go outside!

Janet