British weather
- It keeps you guessing
不列颠之天气
-永远让你捉摸不透
On 13 September the temperature in London reached 31° - the hottest on record since 1911[i]. Located within the same northerly latitudes as Labrador (Canada) but warmed by the Atlantic Ocean, the British Isles are a battle-ground between opposing air masses from North and South bringing by turns cool and warm conditions - and frequent rain, of course.
今年的9月13日，伦敦的气温达到了31摄氏度 – 自1911年的最高气温记录1。不同于处在同一北纬的拉布拉多（加拿大）常年被大西洋温暖着，英伦三岛处在了北风和南风的战场中心，不断变化的冷空气和暖流当然就造就了英国经常下雨的现象。
Perhaps British people discuss the weather a lot not because their conversation is dull but because their weather is interesting.
或许英国人喜欢闲聊时谈天气并不是因为他们的交谈乏味，而是英国的天气太有趣了。
Last week we felt the hot breath of southern Europe. In certain years you might even observe a film of red dust on parked cars: it is sand that has blown nearly 3,000 miles from the Sahara desert[i]. When the wind blows from the West, sniff the scent of the sea. When the wind blows from the East, beware of the ‘Euro-Whiff’ which comes among us during muck-spreading time in Holland and Northern Germany.
上周我们才享受了来自欧洲南部的灼热气息。在某些特定的年份里，你甚至可以观察到停车场里的车辆都穿上了一层红纱：它是一层来自于3000英里外沙哈拉大沙漠里的沙尘1。从西边吹来的风总是带着一丝大海的气息。但当风向来自东方，就要小心这股来自荷兰和德国北部掺杂着渣土却在我们之间蔓延的‘欧洲味道’了。
Over the last 25 years we have been battered by hurricane-force winds, massive floods and some very severe winters[ii].
在过去的25年内，我们不仅饱受飓风强风和洪水泛滥，还经历了一些严寒的冬天2。
Rather like Japan (those islands at the opposite end of the Eurasian land-mass) Britain enjoys great seasonal variation. Witnesses to its variety down the ages have been the nation’s scientists, artists and writers[i].
不比日本（在欧亚大陆另一端尽头的岛屿），英国享有对比很大的季节性变化。而见证这些自古以来变化的则是国家科学家，艺术家及作家1。
It was Englishman Luke Howard (1772-1864), the ‘Namer of Clouds’ who devised the standard scientific classification of clouds and laid the foundations of modern meteorology[i]. Cloud is a motif in the work of English poets and a dynamic part of the landscape in the paintings of English artists such as JM Turner and John Constable[ii].
是英国人卢克·霍华德（1772-1864）制定了云标准的科学分类，并奠定了现代气象学的基础2。正如JM·特纳和约翰·康斯特布尔，云是英国诗人笔尖下的主题，是英国艺术家画作中的景象动态3。
And with everyday expressions like ‘it is raining cats and dogs’ to describe a heavy down-pour, popular culture has its own creative response to the vagaries of UK weather[i].
伴随着‘满天下着猫和狗（倾盆大雨）’ 这样的日常俚语来形容倾盆而下的大雨，对于英国这捉摸不透的天气4，流行文化有着自己的创意回答。
何敏每周邀请大胡子迈克撰文，带你看传统英国人自己眼里的英伦
翻译：Linda Liu，校译/编辑：何敏
索引和拓展阅读
[i]Keeping records of the weather is a British tradition and of value to climate science. English sea captains have provided one of the world's best sources of long-term weather data. Scientists have analyzed log books of the voyages of Royal Navy ships which recorded over the last 400 years air pressure, wind strength, air and sea temperature and major weather around the globe. The studies suggest that global warming may not always be about carbon dioxide emissions.
[ii] This phenomenon is also called ‘blood rain’. Tran M (2014) ‘London Smog warning as Saharan sand sweeps southern England’ Guardian. 1 April. [On-line] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/01/london-smog-saharan-dust-storms-downing-street (Accessed at: 26 September 2016)
[iii] The Met Office is a valued British institution responsible for weather fore-casting.
Met Office. Available at: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting (Accessed at: 26 September 2016)
[iv] English weather is a frequent subject of English poetry and leads to reflections on nature and the life of the spirit. Two examples are Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 -1821 – a very ‘cloudy’ poet) and Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) in whose ‘Pied Beauty’ a cloud formation leads to praise of ‘dappled things’ throughout the natural world. Wikipedia. ‘Pied Beauty’ Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Beauty (Accessed at: 26 September 2016)
As well as the being the subject of writing, the nature poet Ted Hughes (1930-1998) comments on how wind and weather stimulate the creative writing process. Weather gives you new insights. Hughes T. (1967) Poetry in the Making. London. Faber & Faber.
[v] The Met Office have produced a cloud-spotting guide which Luke Howard would have recognised. Met Office.
Available at: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/clouds/cloud-spotting-guide (Accessed at: 26 September 2016)
[vi] You can view some great British cloudscapes at the Tate Britain gallery in London. Tate Gallery. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/search?aid=108&sort=date&type=artwork (Accessed at: 26 September 2016)
[vii] A common but poetic saying is ‘Red sky at night – Shepherd’s delight. Red sky at morning – Shepherd’s warning’. The one predicts a fine day tomorrow the other stormy weather’. It is always right.
