When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a weatherman. That's right, one of those people who stand in front of a green screen pointing out where cold fronts and warm fronts would pass through while reminding viewers of when to cover outdoor plants due to impending frost.
Most of my friends had aspirations of being firefighters or astronauts. Me? I just kept it simple. A suit, a tie and a weather map were all I would need to be happy in life.
It might be because of my grandparents' reluctance of weather forecasters for me to form a bond of distrust between the evening weather report and myself. When it was raining outside, they would usually crack a joke about how "the weatherman got it wrong." I soon began to fall in the same trap of boycotting what the weather reports would say and instead formed my own fortunes about what was to come.
In fact, my grandmother would often ask me when I was outside talking to her on our two-way walkie-talkies what the weather was like and what to expect (primarily so she knew whether or not to put the clothes out on the line to dry). To me, this was fulfilling enough. This was my dream coming true of being a weather forecaster.
I would even place little dry erase boards outside my room plastered with a weather forecast. Not too shabby for a kid who had no data to take him from the current day to the end of that seven-day outlook, right?
My track record wasn't too bad—at least for a while. Then things began to change. I began to notice some of my reports were not in accordance with what Mother Nature had planned for the day. In fact, they were often the exact opposite. Maybe it was thanks to my exaggerated technique of calling for more snow, to get my hopes up for no school the next day. Maybe it was to forecast sun for the next two weeks just because I wanted to be outside as much as possible.
Soon I began to realize how difficult my pseudo job was becoming. Forecasting the weather was not all it was cracked up to be.
That's the point when I began to understand what they go through—they being the weather people who each and every day try and forecast an ever-changing sky so you and I know what to plan for, what to wear, and where to go tomorrow. It was not easy for a kid and it is not easy for the meteorologists.
When I watch the weather now, I think of some things as obvious. When it is hot and humid in the summertime, there is a fair chance for thunderstorms. When it is raining over the entire state of Kentucky, there's a good chance that same front will come through Virginia. If there is a hurricane near Virginia Beach, we will probably get a fair amount of rain from it.
Those things are hopefully obvious for you too.
Nevertheless, we live in an age where the obvious is not enough. We require the need to know more. How strong will that thunderstorm be? How much rain will we get? What time will the hurricane make landfall?
Some of these things are hard, if not impossible, to predict. Who knows exactly how much rain will come from a storm in an hour? That information is not always predictable. We can look at computer models and data all we want, but at the end of the day, weather is weather, and weather will do whatever weather wants.
The job of a weatherman should not be something we devalue. They do their best even though sometimes that is not enough. Every now and then, they will completely miss a forecast. I often recall a time when I was much younger and the forecast was for one foot of snow. School let out early and everyone was in a mass panic. The next day, not even a flake fell.
It is times like these we discredit what meteorologists do thanks to a slip-up. But remember these people are not in control of the weather. They simply provide a layman's approach to knowing what the skies will bring tomorrow. And for me, they do a darn good job every day of the year.
Who knows? Maybe one day I will be in front of that green screen. For now, I will just stick with political science and lobby for the meteorology constituency.
