BRUCE MCLAREN: Weather or not

SAN ANGELO, Texas - I have always admired those folks who have the courage to stand in front of a television camera and prognosticate on what our weather will be for the next few hours, few days or few weeks. They are brave, courageous, stouthearted, and more often than not fairly accurate with their predictions.

The resources available to weather forecasters and meteorologists, as they are also known, appear to have a serious hold in this age of technology. From radar and Doppler to on-the-ground spotters, the science of predicting the weather has grown from best guess scenarios to an unusually accurate science.

The folks we never see regularly on TV are those from the National Weather Service. They provide a lot of the information our TV and radio weathercasters rely on for accuracy and dependability.

What our local TV personalities take and present to us is a result of computer modeling that is based, to a great extent, on the science of physics and data fed into very sophisticated computer systems. From this, short- and long-range models are developed to provide educated predictions about what the weather around us is going to do or not do.

Several years ago, forecasting impending weather events was usually unreliable beyond a couple of days. Enter, today, a new professional, the climatologist, who must understand not only what computer models are predicting, but also how things around us interact such as oceans and the atmosphere. I found it fascinating that even a butterfly, flapping its wings half way around the world, could have some effect on our local weather.

While living in New Mexico, there was a fellow in Ruidoso that seemed pretty successful predicting weather by analyzing bear grease he kept in a glass jar. Often, folks jokingly said that predicting the outcome of a horse race was not possible because the crystal ball was broken and our jar of bear grease was cloudy. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but it relieved frustrations dealing with things many felt to be more serious than predicting the weather.

Associated with television production for several years, I found no one individual the brunt of more jokes and ridicule than the local TV weather reporter. Even now, with greater reliance on high technology and computer-driven and scientific forms of bear grease in a jar, predicting weather is still difficult at best and misunderstood at the least.

Growing up in Detroit, I enjoyed TV weatherman Sonny Elliot. He had a unique way of covering his forecasts when it came to making difficult calls about our unpredictable Michigan weather. On his large, nonhigh-tech weather map he would show cities with temperatures and general conditions at the time.

To further liven up his predictions and add a little humor to what, at that time, was not an exact science, Sonny would combine conditions, like snow mixed with rain, by describing the phenomenon as “snain.” Snow turning to drizzle became — you guessed it — “snizzle.

He became almost as well known for his weather-words as pianist Victor Borge did with his “phonetic punctuation.” At least his forecasts gave you a little chuckle while you made your way through the local newscast.

I doubt if any of our local weather forecasters lose a great deal of sleep if their predictions are not 100 percent correct. I am sure they prefer to err on the side of predicting weather possibilities that could have a safety relationship to our well-being.

If they were always 100 percent accurate with their predictions, would we be any more prepared for the snowstorm, tornado, lightning or gully-washer rainstorm if it really occurred? Although we hear their words and are somewhat aware of a major weather event being called to our attention, don’t many of us pooh-pooh the predictions every time one of our weather gurus goes out on a limb about a pending weather event?

But what if they were not able to offer those predictions, taking weather forecasting back to a time when models and computer analyses were not available? With little or no warning, I think we all know what the outcome might be.

The next time you hear your local weather forecast being given, know that the individual doing the predicting is probably having a Maalox moment about the proverbial question of “what if I am wrong?”

Finally, I’d like to share the old saying about the weather that has been around even longer than computer-supported weather forecasting or bear grease.

“Whether the weather be fine. Whether the weather be not. Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot. We’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather; whether we like it or not.”


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