Weather update: 60% chance of rain.
If the team at Glastonbury Festival Forecast won the lottery, there would be no modest proclamations of surprise or graceful talk of giving some money to charity. Nope, we'd hire a limo, pick up the first sexy ladies we saw, drive around London with The Tampara (feat. Maya) blasting out the open sunroof and crassly inform anyone who looked in our direction that from now on we'd be wiping our bumholes with those fancy new £20 notes.
And then we'd go and lose the ticket.
Given that we'll clearly never be one of the lucky few who win the big money, there's no actual way we could know this for certain. But if the events following last week's metcheck heatwave prediction are anything to go by, we're pretty sure that's the cookie would crumble.
The promise of 25 degree temperatures and a measly 45% chance of rain was all it took to give us the best day of our lives ever. We didn't have the funds to get a limo but that didn't stop us piling on to the Weather Doc's BMX like an overjoyed pyramid of sun-worshipping stuntman and speeding down Oxford Street yelping "Heatwave! Heatwaaaaave!" over the sounds of the sea of bewildered tourists. With hands sore from high-fiving, we embraced, bonded, wept and thanked God. And all for nothing...
No sooner had we finished designing a massive image to leave on the homepage that said "Site closed - it's going to be fucking sunny! Job done! Woo!" did we hear the news. The forecast had changed. True, the new forecast of 21 degrees and a 60% chance of rain isn't entirely terrible, but frankly we quite liked being the bearers of great news. Now we're back to having to counter every bit of good news with a bit of crap news.
Well no more! Why get upset about the thought of rain and lower temperatures when we can spin the news in such a way that it still sounds great and nobody burns their tickets in dismay?
So here goes:- 25 degrees is far too hot anyway. There's next to no free shade at Glastonbury and the idea of standing in those sorts of temperatures actually sounds quite rubbish.
- Rain isn't all that bad. 2005 may have been a washout but there's a lot less chance of that happening this year. Instead, think cooling showers and the chance to shelter up with as much alcohol as your long-suffering kids/other half can carry.
- The less sun, the less chance of fat men getting topless. Doesn't sound that bad, until you're stood in a crowd with stretched, hairy nipples pressing against your forearms, quietly dry-heaving with disgust. And believe us ladies, there's something slightly horrible about urinating next a man who happens to be topless. A bloke who's that happy to show off his bulbous man-tits can only be too happy to urinate on other men in public toilets for fun. Not a fact, but worth presuming to be on the safe side.
Take a brolly, some wellies and lots of alcohol (in plastic bottles of course) anyhow and either way you'll be fine. In sunny weather, the umbrella acts as some welcome shade, alcohol is always welcome whatever the conditions, and the wellies will mean that at least your feet stay dry if you do end up next to a chest-baring watersports fan in the loos. Better to be safe instead of sorry, hmm?
Labels: Glasto Festival Forecast, Rain, Sun
By: Glasto Festival Forecast | Monday, April 23 at 18:37 | | 
When a man with a PhD in pop gives mad props, shows some love and makes some noise for the Weather Doc, brother better listen. Over to the big dawg himself...
Here at GFF HQ or, as we like to call it 'gffhq', things have been very busy indeed. We've had the tricky business of sifting through every weather forecast with the words Glastonbury in it, analysing the results & putting all this technical & highly complex data into our trusty ZX Spectrum - all whilst maintaining adequate stocks of all the other vital weather forecasting stuff you need in an international multi-discipline star studded meteorological office (seaweed, bees, oak & ash trees, gizzards & the like). And as if that wasn't enough, we've had to deal with our ever growing & increasingly A list fan base.
It's as if everyone on Elton John's birthday list has been banging away at our rear entrance trying to get at the goods, such has been the surge in interest. We've even had to turn away some of the early evictees fom Big Brother 3. Out in the street it's no different. I can be minding my own business in a well known supermarket, sizing up the courgettes & mulling over the latest rainfall figures from Peru when I'll feel a tap on my shoulder & someone will ask "Oy, global warming innit?"
Well my weather watching friends, there are important things to think about global warming, and I shall posit the notion that we should bloomin' well think them. Earlier this week, Saint Met Office of Bracknell produced, to great fanfare & acclaim, its long range forecast for Summer 2007 - the period that will almost certainly cover Glastonbury Festival. The most important thing about their long range forecast for Summer 2007 is that it had almost exactly the same words in it as the summary sentence announcing it's publication: likely to continue the warming trend of previous years, no indication of excessive heat or rainfall blah blah, yadda yadda. Today, the newspapers are full of "Phew, what a scorcher" stories predicting another very hot summer & the likelihood of droughts - probably derived from the Environment Agency's drought likelihood report, which does indeed point out that some areas are at risk from water shortages. Planning a wet t-shirt contest? Have it soon, milkytits. Have it soon...
Anyhow, so far so Arctic ice melting-tastic. Hang on though, how come Metcheck increased the likelihood of rain this week from 55 to 60%? How does that square with warming & a hot dry summer? How does that square with the whole global warming thing? Well, for one thing the summer proper won't really be here until July & August - & obviously we're interested in June, particularly the point when our 'monsoon' finishes - something Metcheck are still predicting for Glastonbury weekend. The other point is that global warming doesn't necessarily mean we will be always basking in Mediterranean sunshine. We're an island smack bang in the way of wet winds over the Atlantic heading eastwards. More warming means more evaporation from the sea, and warmer air capable of holding more moisture, meaning more moistness heading our way. Sure it'll be warm & wet instead of cold & wet, but still wet. The sort of storm we saw in 2005 doesn't help recharge underground water stores as it just flows staight into the rivers & streams, & a month of fine drizzle won't do much either, as it'll evaporate before it soaks in to the soil towards the water bearing rocks.
But wait, what's this? What's going on - just as we've been sitting down congratumalating ourselves on another stunning bit of weather info for our adoring public Metcheck try & pull a fast one. The sneaky bastards! It's as if they wanted to discredit us and make us look like stupid amateurs who are just making it all up. There it is, right there on their webpage, a little forecast with clogs on, well I declare shouting 45% chance of rain & 25 degrees. HEATWAVE - IT'S A HEATWAVE!! It is now officially more likely to not rain than it is to rain, and those high temperatures more than make up for it. Maybe they read the headlines & took note of The Weather Outlook website that predicts high pressure building from the south from the end of May. Maybe the threatening letters & nasty looks we've been giving them in the supermarket have worked. We'll keep stalking them on your behalf though, because they
still have our monsoon ending at Glastonbury weekend. For now we'll believe them, mainly because we like the idea of warm & dry more than wet & cold, and The Slideometer is heading straight back to Michael 'Happychops' Eavis' smiling face on the right.
So there's your answer - we are going to have a nice Festival. In fact, it's going to be bloody lovely & we can drink beer in the sun till we fall over & go very pink. Every so often there might be a rumble of thunder & a sharp shower but on the whole, by and large, in a manner of speaking and suchlike, we're going to fry in our stinking filth encrusted festival pants. True, it might change. The people with all the numbers might change their minds & make it rain again, but for now we can rejoice & start buying suncream. Don't worry if the forecast changes. As it gets closer to Glastonbury time, if it looks like it's going be bad, we'll just lie, because it will make you feel better & happy, and that's what we at Glastonbury Festival Forecast are all about.
Labels: Glasto Festival Forecast, Sun, Warm
By: Glasto Festival Forecast | Saturday, April 14 at 20:21 | |
