St Jude: a meteorological lost cause
We named the storm after St Jude because he occurred on the day we remember the patron saint of lost causes.
Thankfully for most of us we will not remember St Jude for what he did to the elements.
The storm itself turned out to be a meteorological lost cause.
The scientific models were in fact spot on. As was the reaction from the understandably cautious authorities.
The winds were vicious. The huge tree looming over our flat was bent like bamboo.
The streets were covered with a blanket of leaves, berries and twigs like some feral wedding party with a country theme.
And the tube was as packed as a performance art project about population density.
But it wasn’t Armageddon. The number of casualties was mercifully small. There was the inevitable cynicism that we had all overblown the power of the impending wind.
Read more: Met Office: We don’t know why the storm is called St Jude
Having lived in America for over a decade I can safely say there are few things more forgivable than exaggerating a storm.
In the USA the big ones are known by their first names like menacing family members that can’t be shaken off and that have left us with life changing experiences.
They destroy entire cities, thousands of lives and they play havoc with the list of possible names for new born children.
You won’t find many babies called Katrina or Sandy in the US any more.
In Britain we are fascinated by the weather in the way that eunuchs are enthralled by tales of sex.
Read more: Four die as storms hit southern Britain
We get so little of it. In America weather makes people turn to religion.
The tornados of Oklahoma that cut a scar across the pancake flat landscape of America’s middle like God’s paw are truly terrifying.
I have been hit by hail stones the size of golf balls in Alabama.
Afterwards I looked as if I had been a very bad loser in a paintball game.
Add to that forest fires reducing millions of acres to ashes and the mind boggling thought that the whole of Yellowstone Park sits on top of a super volcano that would, if erupted, become an extinction event and you understand why America gave birth to the Weather Channel.
But it also makes you appreciate the much aligned and historic understatement on this wet wind swept island of a man called Fish.
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