The prognosticators had cast their bones, stirred their ashes, consulted their input from higher headquarters and announced that on Monday and Tuesday we would have showers. They missed by a mile on Monday.
So, Monday night all of them huddled together and emerged from their cabalistic gatherings to announce that north of San Francisco there would surely be showers, especially in the afternoon when the heat from below rose and met with the frigid arctic air above, flowing down from the northern hinterlands.
Tuesday dawned with just a smattering of fleecy clouds and the nay-sayers danced their dance and shouted derisive taunts at the fools in power in the weather bureaucracy. Their jibes went unanswered by a stoic and somewhat fearful-eyed group. The faces of the weather drudges were pale and slightly diaphoretic, dripping with perspiration. Their jobs, their future, nay, their very souls were being challenged by the motley mob of doubters.
The “elements” group huddled, albeit by fax, and e-mail, and in some rare cases, by video hook-up. “What will we do?” they muttered and fidgeted. “The fancy letters we attach to our names are at stake here. Does anyone have any idea what might possibly happen with the winds aloft, the gentle trades, the barometric highs and lows, and the chancy, slippery, hard to deal with, thermals that are the bane of the industry?”
Some rare unenlightened souls suggested interrupting the soaps and game shows to announce that the weather was, “More unpredictable than usual, and that updated forecasts would be forthcoming shortly.” They figured that this would satisfy the unwashed citizenry that were being so vocal in their casting of aspersions on the hallowed weather persons, and would be a diabolically clever way to out wait nature and to put everything into a hiatus of uncertainty. And they say that Machiavelli was a schemer and plotter! Jesus Wept!
“No!” cried others, they with a little self-respect and a modicum of professionalism, “We must give the people the truth!” Well, you never heard such an uproar, even if by fax and e-mail!
“The truth? If we do that we would be out of a job!”
“How about we show some satellite images and point to the cloud patterns and
say, ‘See, the clouds are moving, everything is in a turmoil.’”
“That will bamboozle some, and others less gullible will look at the swirling
designs and shake their heads and walk away as unsure as we are.”
“But,” cried others, “maybe they will be able to figure out what is afoot
and then we will be in even deeper dookey!”
“Never fear,” said one old grizzled veteran, “just use your pointer and say
amazingly erudite things about the barometric pressure and the isobars and all
of the lines and arrows and little diamonds of varying colors. They will be
amazed and they will relax and they will be happy, even though ignorant as
before.”
Needless to say, they procrastinated and futzed about until the most junior member tremulously faxed that, “Maybe we should consult with the regional office of the National Weather Service.” The old timers were stunned! What a brilliant idea! They were all hammering out support for the idea on their keyboards and zapping off the faxes as fast as the little fax boxes could send.
Oh, woe! The regional staff, being not ignorant of what was afoot, had placed their phones on “Message” and were all down in the cafeteria getting jittery on stale, acidic, black coffee and bolting down soggy croissants.
When the senior person called from the field he got, “Well good weather-buddies, we have been temporarily called away to unravel a maelstrom of significant indicators and will return shortly. Your call is important to us, so please leave your name and number at the beep and we will get right back to you.” ALORS! What now? Mutterings and a low rumble of impending doom were circulating throughout Northern California's castles of forecast.
By now it was almost 3:00 p.m. and it was suggested, in desperation, that since they were in the office of the station with the tallest building among all of them, that the Senior CGM should go up to the roof and look at all the gauges, examine the meters, check the weather vanes, tap their fingers on the barometers, and stick wetted digits to the heavens. Oh! Also, look to the west and north and see if anything of substance could be discerned.
As luck would have it, the trip was very productive. The CGM came bounding back down and fired off faxes, talked into the tiny PC video cameras, and spoke over the phone in an animated and excited voice, “I see clouds! I am not kidding, off to the northwest I see big, white fluffy dollops of clouds. Big clouds, thick clouds, clotted and swollen clouds the like of which we have seldom seen in summer, clouds that epitomize the veritable word cloud.”
Such a hubbub of excitement flowed over the lines, such an exaltation, their bacon was saved, the fat was out of the fire, their futures were secure. Now, how to word the “special announcements.”...
Meanwhile, up north, the thunderheads built up and darkened and frothed and burbled and then, the sky opened and like a bovine quadruped urinating on a flat stone, the rains came. The drops were as large as cherries, the winds blew, the lightning flashed and there was seen the strangest of the strange. A big, large, bodacious, summer rain storm. Well, limbs were ripped from trees, lightning blasted into the exposed lines, gutters were swamped, streets were flooded, earth was eroded, and the deluge continued unabated for over an hour. Calls were made to the offices of the weather people, those same people that display drawings of how the innocents perceive the weather, those that take the kids on fishing trips, and those that were all feverishly finishing their revamped warnings of rain to come.
Well, I want to tell you, all hell broke loose! The prognosticators had been high-carded by Mother Nature, the hussy! The unruly and unmannered tramp! The unprincipled BITCH!
They reluctantly accepted the information from their sources, and noted the figures on their charts and updated their lines and funny little animated graphics that show over blue. They fired off messages to the regional people, but still got only a canned message from them. It was now 5:00 p.m. and most of Lake County was in darkness. Commerce had come to an almost total stand-still. The laser readers were not lasering, the cash registers were not adding, the built-in calculators had stopped ciphering the complex taxes, the lights were dark and clerks had to walk among their wares, helping the distraught shoppers pick out their purchases, forgetting for the moment that they would not be able to tally up the ticket because, well, you know, they don't put prices on anything anymore! What a mess! Revenues were slipping away, shekels were not being amassed, fortunes were being eroded, it was WRONG! It was certainly not right! It bordered on being a red Commie plot!
The cable company had been trounced and even when the power was restored, after a couple of scary hours, there was nothing but static on the idiot box.
This my friends is why the people in the North Counties did not hear the braying of the asses of weather. They were not exposed to the posturing and the ear-to-ear smiles of the weather people. They did not see the triumphant pointing and the oft repeated message of, “I told you we would have showers, and you can see we certainly did have showers just like I told you we would have.” They could barely contain themselves, they were brilliant, they were forceful, they were sure in their science. No lingering doubt could be detected even by the clairvoyant among the few who were watching this bombastic display of smugness.
Life soon returned to normal in the north lands, the air was fresh, the dust was settled, the crops were watered, the clouds had dispersed, the cable was still off, and Jeopardy was missed, but, my friends, the faith in the infallibility of the weather gods was unshaken and we resumed our plodding, along deep in our ruts, peaceful and serene.
We, except for this revelation of the facts, were not aware of how close we came to losing an entire segment of our news.
Oh, later that evening, a number of the forecasters were harmed when their boisterousness ran afoul of the dimmed wits of the watchers of sports. Those whose games and tail-gate parties had been often cut short by the total error of the weather person's choices for previous evenings prognostications.
So you see my child, there is a God. And He sits above the earth, much higher than the satellites, and He KNOWS what the weather will be. But, alas, He never divulges it, even when the weather people plead, wail, and keen with their imploring prayers!
Written by Dale E. Malone, Is your weather prognostication any
better?
The Great & Wonderful Kahuna wants to know!
Last
modified: April 26, 2009