A weather app on my telephone, and my iPad, as well as the computer? Of course, you must be prepared. The sun is shining, so what could possibly go wrong, but just a minute. at 7.00 this evening it will snow, but no problem. Tomorrow morning we have a grey cloud at 4.00 a.m. with snow and rain and tomorrow morning at 7.00 it will be raining.

Does this really matter? If you have to go somewhere, you go no matter what the weather predictions say, although my mum was convinced if visitors were expected they would probably not come “beause it was raining” (she was a Brit so is excused, Brits live by the weather conditions).

I was sure that the weather forecast on the TV was Mr. Swiss favourite programme. He would be ready every evening at 7.55 to see what would be happening around us and we were to be silent so that he could concentrate. Switzerland is a small country, so there is no big problem in prophesying the weather. Everything under control, almost.

Well it did go a little wrong here when Sandra Boner, our weather lady, forgot the words and inserted a “bla, bla, bla” but she organised it afterwards. The basic language is Swiss German of course. The weather report is usually read from the roof of the television studios in Zürich, so the meteorologist are dressed for the occasion. In summer with a summer dress and perhaps a light jacket, as it can be quite breezy on the roof. During the deep Winter they might be clothed with a woolly hat and scarf and protective padded jacket. This looks like it was early Summer. Actually the young lady is a sort of neighbour of ours, living in the town of Solothurn. I do not know her personally of course but now and again see her in the local store with her two children. She is not actually a meteorologist, just tells everyone the weather from information supplied by the meteorologists.

But it is a fact that more than half of our conversations revolve around the weather and you can be sure that if you meet someone, the weather will be mentioned. So thanks to modern day technology, my weather prognosis on my iPad showing the sun was correct.

I wonder how the weather reports look if you are living in an oasis in the Sahara Desert, or perhaps at the North Pole where an ice berg is floating past. Sahara: “Today we have a very long hot spell that will cool up a night” or Arctic: “Today it will be cold but only for a short time  because the the day is only a few minutes”, or something like that.

RDP Friday: Forecast