I have often wished, as a trickle of water runs slowly down back of my neck, that weather forecasts were more reliable. True, there is a certain pleasure in watching curtains of rain lash across a river, but only when the lashing doesn’t include me. In general I like to be a spectator where weather is concerned, not a participant; so The World of Weather was a welcome read.

Brain Cosgrove has managed to produce an excellent book, which doesn’t shy away from describing kata frontal systems in the same breath as adiabatic warming, but somehow manages to do so in terms that are easy enough for a fisherman to understand.

The initial chapters on the atmosphere, pressure, wind, and temperature are carefully written and gorgeously illustrated, so that when the complex stuff arrives in the sections on cloud types, precipitation, depressions and frontology, the reader has enough background knowledge to stay the course. If you read this book very carefully enough, you might just be able to work out how to avoid getting wet the next time you go fishing.