Meteorology, science or scam?

What a big shock, the weather predictors are wrong again. After hearing about how we are in for a hurricane season full of category 4 storms, we have made it through with little more than a few severe rain storms that can barely be attributed to the tropical depressions that brewed around us. It is pretty evident that being a meteorologist takes the intellectual fortitude of a frat boy drop out, or sorority pin cushion. Which in most instances the people I see reporting the weather are a little attractive, but hardly in the “Hot” category. So then what? To be a network weather person, what are the qualifications? To be able to keep a straight face as you report the results of your lucky eight ball? “From the Fox Weather room, here is Dick Strokem, Dick what are we in for?


Thank you Sharen Cemen, what we have today in the way of rain is, definitely! And tomorrow we have not likely, but I recommend you check back later on that one.” And when they report on possible hurricanes, you get things like, ”We have a tropical depression forming down here off the coast of Africa, according to our weather models it could head through Cuba, or maybe miss this completely and end up in the gulf of Mexico, but let’s not rule out the possibility that it totally wipes Florida off the map. Should it miss Florida, there is every indication it will head up the East Coast and cause heavy rainfall with the possibility of wind damage and maybe storm surges. If we are lucky though it should stay out in the Atlantic and never make land fall, back to you Joe Wanabe for sports.”

Sure technically we are still in the hurricane season down here in Central Florida, but let’s be honest. That is only being reported to help sell generators & plywood at Home Depot, and cases of batteries & water at Wal Mart. Today I woke to temperatures in the 60’s which I found rather refreshing, as well as hardly inductive to tropical weather. No, my experience has been once we turn the corner from overnight lows in the high 80’s to low 60’s we are out of the danger zone for tropical weather.

So Denis Phillips, you can stop with the tropical storm updates, roll your dice to get the high’s and lows, and keep shaking that Magic Eight Ball, because I am not buying it.

I will stick to the method that is 100% accurate! I’ll send my boys out the front door and ask them what the weather is doing. They have never came back in and said, “It is a scorcher out there,” while scraping icicles off their balls.