Broadcast weather reports began on the radio in 1922, when it was thought they would be of most interest to mariners. By 1936, they had made the transition to the small screen, with an anonymous hand drawing isobars on a chart. In 1954, the first on-camera weather presenter, George Cowling, advised us that tomorrow would be rather windy, a good day to hang out the washing.

We have never stopped talking about the weather, deriving a fascination from its extremes such as the great storm of 1987, and its moments of out-and-out weirdness, like the shower of shellfish that fell on Worcester in 1881. The reason the English like talking about it is, of course, that it’s always doing something different. We think it would be quite dull to live somewhere where it was always reliably fine. Don’t we?