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All enjoyable things must come to an end and so it is that I find myself thinking what to write about in my last article for theWeather Club.  Over the years I’ve covered all things hot to cold, calm to stormy, hurricanes to tornadoes, so I thought it was about time I wrote about communicating the weather, or the weather forecast to be more precise.  It’s all very good making an outstanding forecast, but if you cannot get the forecast across to the user of the information then to all intents and purposes it is worthless, at least to that user.

By Adam Corner*, Research Director at Climate Outreach, and an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Psychology, Cardiff University.

Over the last decade, the level of interest in climate change communication has grown rapidly – there’s now a huge number of people, organisations and institutions involved in the theory and practice of public engagement.

by Prof Paul Hardaker
Chief Executive of The Institute of Physics

The Institute of Physics (IoP) is the national physical society for both Ireland and the UK, so I often find myself travelling through Dublin airport.  Where I board the plane there are tributes to the famous Irish poets, including a personal favorite, William Butler Yeats.  He wrote a beautiful poem called cloths of heaven, which I have to share with you here:

by David Warrilow
RMetS Vice- President and Chair of the Climate Science Special Interest Group  

 “What do you think a cloud feels like?” I asked the assembled Brownies

“Cotton wool, cotton candy, fluffy, cool, wet ….”

A simple garden pond decoration that produces mist by forcing water through a very fine mesh, combined with a large shallow bowl of water, creates a cloud for children to feel. Most of them end up slightly disappointed as a cloud feels like nothing very much, but it is a good conversation starter!