Opinion: Weather forecasting: Just stinking luck!

I just finished watching my 10th weather forecast including the “Local on the Eights,” network TV and AM radio - and I must say to the weatherman or weathergirl (to use an out-of-date, non-PC term!): nice outfit. But beyond that charitable outfit nod, you've got to ask yourself, “Are you feeling lucky, punk? Go ahead and make my day, make a forecast that I can depend on.”

I guess that's what stirred me up. The forecast for the last few days has evolved, eroded, commoded, and revolved from “possible rain,” to “light snow,” to “LOOK OUT, HERE IT COMES snow,” to “a little snow,” and, finally back to “a touch of rain” as our final dose of reality! So, I began to ponder …

You always need weather. Period. In my capacity as a commercial pilot, I have some knowledge about the stuff, and I like looking at a sky full of various weather phenomena. Most of all, we mortals spend an inordinate amount of time like Galileo musing about the age old proposition of “What's the weather?” or “How's the weather?”

Over the years, in pursuit of just such information, I've become a Weather Channel junkie. I'll confess that I am in the 12-step program and, shamefully, I even warped my daughters, who often sit glued to the TV during hurricane season to scope out Jim Cantore, Weather Channel “stud.”

Where will the next New Orleans or Pierce City send that Italian racehorse? It just seems wrong to follow the storms as the scenes unfold depicting a real version of reality TV, but some of us still follow fire trucks and ambulances - here's just another perverted “show.”

Most importantly, when you think of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, The Weather Channel, the local TV or radio station or AccuWeather, you naturally think of meteorologists - not only Cantore but also Bob Stokes, Tim Drum and Ron Hurst. I mean, these are the crack troops who each brandishes his own forecasting tools. Without weather, Earth would be more like the moon or somewhere else in outer space - which is where it seems the meteorologists of the day are when it comes to forecasting.

Remember the joke that has a citizen calling in to his local TV station weather guy to say, “I just got through shoveling 12 inches of partly cloudy off my driveway!”? Ouch.

On a trip I was flying to south Texas and trying to access en route weather. As I neared Waco, I called Flight Service Station - basically a weather bureau - and asked them about local conditions. They just gave me the same weather in the system.

I said, “Can you just look out the window and see if it's storming?” To my surprise, they said they couldn't because they were located in the basement. Great spot for a weather bureau!

But let's face it, in what other line of work can you be wrong 50 percent of the time or more, you don't die from your work (unless an outraged golfer attacks you at the station when a “sunny” day at the links turns unexpectedly wet), and you get periodic pay raises?

I wonder if they've made forecasting too complicated to be usefully accurate? Here are a couple of forecasting techniques worth considering:

“The moon's face is red, there's water ahead.” That seems pretty reliable, as it could be from airborne dust being pushed ahead of a moisture-laden, low-pressure area.

“Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky at morning, sailor take warning.” This one is good, too, but it only works if you own and use a sailboat. It does signify, like the moon example above, that a pressure area coming in from the west near sunset is once again stirring up that particulate matter. You may want to wear a breathing mask as you “take warning.”

Another forecaster is animal behavior. I'm not talking about Cartoon's on Friday or Saturday nights - but I could be. Seriously, pigs and squirrels gather more debris to insulate themselves and a true indication is the thickness of their coats - except for the mink, whose coat is often found at McDaniel's Furs.

My personal favorite animal indicator is the dead skunk in the middle of the road. Known as “road kill” and considered a delicacy in parts of Arkansas, the esoteric meaning behind this weather predictor is that the skunk was just too slow for modern traffic!

I suppose this means that animals are fickle, moon dust will fool you, and human weather dudes will just look good, like an ad in GQ. The only solution that is reasonably at hand is the Farmer's & Planter's Almanac. Yes, for the price of a copy, and with the vagaries of the forecasts (after all, they're for a YEAR in advance), and the shortness of our memories, this little dandy should do the trick.

You can still watch the weather on TV, just don't pay any attention to the forecasts - check out the latest hairdo and wardrobe, and figure that it isn't likely we'll have a hurricane around here. When the other storms are in the area, well, you'll just know it!

Mike Rankin is branch manager of American Home Mortgage and has never been head of the Drury communication department.

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