PDFPitve is considered a special place. It seems to have its own micro-climate. Weather conditions are often startlingly different from those in Jelsa, just three kilometres away. It might be raining heavily in Pitve, while Jelsa basks in glorious sunshine, and occasionally, but more rarely, vice versa. For this reason, weather reports based on the nearest main reporting station of Split do not necessarily apply to Pitve.
An accurate weather report is essential for planning outdoor activities, such as hanging out the washing, painting the shutters, working in the fields, leaving the island to visit the mainland, or setting out to sea to catch fish.
In olden times, most of the villages on Hvar benefited from the expertise of a "weather diviner", who predicted the weather through understanding the natural signs. If rain was due, the village church bell would be rung to warn people to come in from the fields, to avoid catching a chill. It could be a critical decision: if it was wrong, the weather diviner would be blamed for causing illnesses by failing to foresee the rain, or for making people lose valuable time in the fields through a false alarm.
Nowadays technology helps to provide the solutions more simply, and perhaps more accurately. Myweather2 gives a service of weather forecasts for the situations where it matters most, including ski resorts and sailing venues. The Pitve forecast given by myweather2 is astonishingly accurate, and is a good example of how modern technology can be used to help transform life in a small, localized but nonetheless significant part of the world.
