WEATHERWISE

Discussing the weather has often been hailed as Britain's greatest national pastime. Indeed it is certainly true that the weather, in all its myriad forms, keeps most of us guessing at what it will do next. The observation and study of weather is now a multi-million pound operation involving highly sensitive machinery. At the same time, farmers and fishermen have been predicting the weather for much longer and some would claim with a great deal more accuracy. One such sceptic is Bill Foggit, naturalist and amateur weatherman, who has been studying the weather for the past 50 years from his home in Thirsk, North Yorkshire. Bill has a range of "natural" weather advisers and instruments to aid his observations. His barometers range from an old pine cone hanging outside the door to the wood anemone whose petals close up at the approach of rain; the arrival of swallows and martins determines how good a summer we will have, as does the position of frogspawn on a pond.