A burden he shares with all of those in his profession is the tendency the public has to somehow want to shoot the messenger when he has the audacity to announce a miserable outlook yet again. His audience loves to tick him off for looking, too cheerful by half as he delivers the latest forecast of rain sweeping across the region.

"It's bad enough that the weather's gloomy, without me standing there looking like I'm in mourning," he says chirpily.

Can't pitch your tent because of those darned high winds? Sitting in the pavilion, hoping the stair-rods of rain might relent for long enough to allow an over or two of cricket? Desperate to get out to mow the lawn or rescue the flattened foliage of your tender new shrub? Send for Hudson's head on a plate. Maybe switching him off will magically turn on the sun.

If only it were that simple and weather forecasters, instead of their degrees in physics and intimate knowledge of climatology, had that god-like gift of calming tempests and calling forth sunshine, with bursts of essential rainfall confined to the hours when we're tucked up in bed.

"The longer bad weather continues, the more irritable and wound-up people become, and that's reflected in the correspondence I get," says the 37-year-old BBC Yorkshire weather forecaster and climate correspondent.

"I've been called all sorts. There are always those who'll complain if you forecast rain and get it wrong, but there are also people who'll be unhappy that you forecast bad weather and got it right."

And then there are those who want absolute certainty about the forecast, which isn't always possible, even with state-of-the-art machinery. Data provided by systems run at European and US meteorological centres (which use slightly different software) is compared with information crunched by the UK's Met Office.

Where those rafts of data comprising "ensemble forecasting" don't look quite the same, it's agreed that there's is an element to the elements that is unpredictable. When such volatility exists, the weather forecaster has to say so.

The current spell of prolonged unsettled weather with its periods of heavy rain is fairly typical for this time of year in Britain, says Hudson.

"People think summers in the UK should be good, and that they have mostly been fine in the past. But, statistically, August has always been one of our wettest months. In 2004, we had the wettest August since 1922. July is almost always a much better month."

But how does he account for the shortfall between public expectations that summer should be warm and dry and the predictably gloomy reality?

"I think partly it's to do with global warming – people have been warned that we will see drought, when all that is a longer-term thing, really – and they also look back and remember a few oustandingly hot summers, such as those of 1975 and 1976, when we all had fantastic days out at Ilkley Lido and Scarborough. But we have a great ability to forget the more dreary, miserable summers, like that of 1977.

"Summers throughout the 1960s and '70s were poor. But one unusual weather event, like the one-in-500-year drought in 1995, sticks in the mind. That year we had standpipes and the problems with Yorkshire Water's leaky pipes. We can all remember what we were doing that summer."

That summer, Paul Hudson was a young Met Office forecaster and he recalls great pressure on weather forecasters to give the public (and water companies) hope by bringing good news of rain.

"Back then, we could only reliably forecast four to six days ahead. Now we can go a bit further ahead than that, but it's still the case that the further ahead you go, the less reliable the forecast.

"There's been talk of an Indian summer in September. Although I don't like to sit on people's hopes, there is currently no way of knowing that. It's impossible to forecast so far ahead."

You'd have to go a long way to meet anyone who loves his job as much as Keighley-born Paul Hudson, who graduated with a first-class degree in physics before training as a Met Office forecaster. His enthusiasm is utterly infectious.

For his 21 daily forecasts on BBC Yorkshire and local radio stations and the climate reports he puts together for Look North, he relies on systems that are continually capturing and crunching information on air pressure, temperature, rainfall, wind direction and all sort of other minutiae, to build a picture of how the weather will behave in this region.

Over a 24-hour period, the Met Office says it gives an average 87 per cent accuracy in its forecasts. There can be periods of two or three weeks where predictions are less accurate because of chaotic weather systems.

A major influence on our current weather is the northern hemisphere jet stream, which is occupying an unusual position this summer. It is a ribbon of strong winds at 30,000-plus feet in the skies. At the point where winds meet in the jet stream, weather systems develop.

If it's right above us or to the south of us (as it is at the moment, over France), weather here will be generally unsettled and windy; if it's to the north, we experience warm, settled weather. It's thought that the current rapid rate of Arctic ice melt that's been observed this summer, artificially cooling the ocean, is one possible explanation for the unusual location of the jet stream.

Maybe the thing we ordinary "consumers" of the weather don't quite grasp – or didn't until we were told how the melting of the ice-caps would affect our weather and erode our coastline – is that a blip on the other side of the planet can affect the scene that greets us when we wake up in the morning.

"Global warming and the melting that's now well under way means that, in the long-term, we will all experience a more aggressive and extreme climate," says Hudson.

"By 2080, winters will be 30 per cent wetter and summers up to 60 per cent drier, with a mean temperature 4C higher than now. The overall drop in annual rainfall will be about 20 per cent. Bridlington will have the same rainfall as Barcelona, 20-25mm compared to around 50mm now.

"The main worry for some people is flooding, yet, in general, people will be more likely to have problems with subsidence. The average 21C
July temperature in Leeds will rise to 25C."

The current gloomy prospect, Paul describes as "transition weather", the stage that comes before the dry, hot summers which will crack our brickwork and garden paths. In terms of days out at the coast and the health of the domestic tourist industry, that news is good – although erosion will mean there is actually less of Yorkshire to enjoy.

People ask Hudson to give them guidance on where to buy a house in East Yorkshire – bearing in mind problems associated with last year's floods – and others write asking him for advice about weather trends in planning such important decisions as whether to emigrate. As he says, there is nowhere to hide from the future effects of global warming.

When it comes to buying a house, it's rather a tall order to expect a weather expert to have all the answers, as flooding can be influenced by other factors, such as geology, drainage systems and quality of flood defences.

Paul Hudson would be happy to talk weather all afternoon, but the studio calls. I notice his wellies, always at the ready in case of a location report from some weather-battered part of the region. Does he think he'll be calling on them as we head for the Bank Holiday?

"We're expecting more rain today with heavy downpours on Thursday afternoon, but there is an indication that something better might arrive just in time for Friday and the weekend."

His tone may be naturally cheerful and matter-of-fact but, far from berating Paul Hudson for somehow manufacturing bad weather, let's give him a gold star for spreading a little sunshine, a spoonful of honey to soothe the pain of a typically wet August.