Donald Rumsfeld famously summed it up “There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things we know that we don’t know”
It’s that time of year to dust off the calculator, download the updated Excel spreadsheet (or fancy new app), put the thinking cap on – and engage in some inspired planning and budgetary forecasts for next year. Tuck 2015 away for reference and insert all the ‘knowns and unknowns’ for 2016. Trouble is that the ‘unknowns’ far outweigh the ‘knowns’.
Top of the ‘unknowns’ is our ‘benefactor’ or ‘bete-noir’. The weather.
Weather impact is topping the news agenda this week. The floods affecting Cumbria has Government ministers scurrying to offer money and support, but where next? Weather continues to be unpredictable and no amount of money can completely prevent the extremes.
Earlier in the week, the UK record rainfall was broken with over 341mm dumped on parts of Cumbria in 24 hours (serious, but a shower compared with the 305mm that fell on Holt, Missouri in 42 minutes in 1947!).
Then again, I looked up my summary of the season for the first year of the new Millennium in Service Dealer December 2000. What a crazy year that was for weather.
Heavy snow crippled the country two weeks after British Summer Time began, followed by the wettest April on record. In May, Bracknell had 65mm of rain in an hour (compared with a monthly average of 56mm for the month).
The patchy and generally unsettled summer months were then followed by the wettest Autumn on record. Huge parts of the country were flooded. Sussex and Kent fared badly, as did huge swathes of Yorkshire and the traditionally vulnerable areas around Worcester and Shrewsbury. In all 10,000 homes and businesses were flooded in over 700 locations.
In the 15 years since, we’ve had hot and sunny summers (2003, 2006), a very warm Spring (2011), drought conditions that lasted from the winter of 2010 to March 2012, serious floods in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2014 – and this year a one-day recording breaking heatwave of 36.7% on 1 July.
As Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson said "I cannot command winds or weather"
Our industry’s fortunes have always been driven by weather first, and the economy second. So trying to second-guess the weather for next year is futile. Each season is different, each season a challenge. Always has been, always will be.
The strength that we have as a community of independent specialists is resourcefulness, adaptability and the ability to be nimble on our feet. The mild weather over the last month or so has helped the extend the season (as was the case in 2000), but next year - when will Spring spring? Put that seaweed on your Christmas wish-list . . .
