How to read the secret signs of the weather

The next time you’ve got five minutes, don’t pick up your phone and fill your head with “digital nonsense”; just look out your window and ask yourself what that big cloud out there is trying to tell you.

There is a whole world out there – and Tristan’s point is that it is fascinating. And that’s the idea behind his latest book How to Read Signs in Every Cloud, Breeze, Hill, Street, Plant, Animal, and Dewdrop. As he says, the weather changes as we walk around a tree or turn down a street. There is a secret world of weather – one that we all live in, but very few see.

Each day we pass dozens of small weather signs that reveal what the weather is doing all around us – and what is about to happen. The clues are easy to spot when you know how but remain invisible to most people.

In The Secret World of Weather you’ll discover the simple rules that explain the weather signs. “My work is about the clue signs and meaning. There is a lot of chat about how we should spend more time outdoors and be more connected with nature. But I am a bit of a poacher-turned-gamekeeper in that respect. I never used to be quite so interested in the natural world.”

And maybe that explains his “So what?” approach – the two words that will always be in his head. Whenever he is taking walks, he takes the view that it is not enough to point out “Oh, that is a such-and-such.” To the fact, you have to add the meaning, the significance. Once you give the significance then inevitably people will develop a much closer bond with nature.”

Tristan, who lives just outside Eartham, sees his book as like inviting readers into a room where there are hundreds of people to meet, rather like going to a huge party. You won’t be interested in everyone. You won’t stay in touch with everyone. But there will be some people that you feel a connection with – and it’s just the same with the weather signs Tristan sets out to explain. Follow his explanations and you will realise that the weather is much more local and much more personal than you’d ever suspect. As he says, the science of meteorology has made incredible strides in a relatively short time, but it paints a picture of atmospheric phenomena with broad brushstrokes across a large area.

The fact is that the wind, for instance, is much more flakey and changeable than the weather forecast would have you believe with its prediction of maybe 12mph from the SW.

“If you walk by the Market Cross in Chichester, you will often feel a slight gust because the wind will channel there. And that’s one of the characters you can read about – the gap wind. The wind will accelerate between two buildings, two trees, two mountains – rather like putting your finger on a hose. And that is what is happening there.”

“I never come from the angle that you must be interested in this or life will fall apart. Mine is a much more positive message – that it is just fascinating stuff. I am not deluded enough to think that everyone will find it so, but maybe there are one or two people out of ten that have that deductive side to their mind. It is the same with murder mysteries and crosswords, the same appeal.”

And that’s what Tristan is tapping into – the kind of curiosity that doesn’t just notice that there are clouds over the Isle of Wight at the moment, but actually wonders why.

Find about more about Tristan’s work on www.naturalnavigator.com/tristan-gooley

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