We’re in the midst of a supreme drought. Rainfall has been significantly below average for three years. Since we live near a lake, its declining level is represented visually. If you paced it off, the lake is probably down 60 feet on average, though one could argue there is no “average” in the world any more. There are only massive peaks and troughs.
The dynamics of changing weather patterns seems to be evident storm after storm – more and more sustained and devastating in their impacts. At the same time, longer periods of perpetually high heat and cold appear on the global map.
In the old days, we used to pray for rain. Now we pray for the weather person to get his or her prediction right because when they tell us rain is coming, WE WANT IT, WE NEED IT.
Then we don’t get it, and we are disappointed. It is interesting to watch our two younger kids who are still at home, with our eldest off to college. Having moved around the country several times, when they were younger, they got used to periods where steady, consistent rain fell annually. When you live in that type of situation, it becomes your normal.
Now, as we face day after day of relentless heat during the summer in north Texas, the household complaint becomes. “When is it going to rain? I can’t wait for it to rain. I wish it would rain for a month straight.” If you polled the family, most of us would agree on how much we’d look forward to long, consistent, steady soakings.
Grey skies are great. Bring on the lower temps! We’re ready.
That’s why it can be so disturbing when the weather person is the one we need to pray for since they so consistently get our weather predictions wrong. Just in the past couple of months, for example, they have gone on the record guaranteeing 1-3 inches of rain for our area three separate times. It is not a good idea to guarantee anything, when you can’t follow it up.
This creates anger, frustration and disappointment. On Monday, they will start with their “look for a weekend of showers.” As the week crawls by, it changes in terms of percentages, and then by Saturday morning it becomes a “chance of rain” that night, “tapering off into the morning.”
By 6 p.m., they’d removed any rain at all from the weather report, citing some strange concoction of variables that allowed them to get off the hook. Sunday morning arrived clear, and another weekend passed with no precipitation.
This happened three times locally over about a two month period. Each time, the report on rain surfaced early in the week, was tracked for 4-5 days, with the full expectation that it couldn’t miss us as the storm system got closer and closer. But it did.
So we continue coping with a three-year drought, and the knowledge that the weather people can’t do their jobs. It’s a double whammy.
The worst part was that as the predictions got more and more “certain,” you actually begin to believe, “They have to be right this time. They’ve been wrong the last two times, so it’s got to hit us. The third time is a charm.”
Of course, it is not. Adding tinder firewood to the blaze, the announcers also got more revved up with each passing failure, so by the third potential rainstorm, there was the possibility of six inches of rain, flash flood warnings and hail. We got a light sprinkle for 10 minutes each, three times that afternoon.
We have to look at this from the inverse proportional angle: As the weather person gets increasingly certain, we should grow increasingly cynical about his perspective. When he guarantees perfect skies, then we’ll get thunderstorms. Count on that. And pray for him.
The dynamics of changing weather patterns seems to be evident storm after storm – more and more sustained and devastating in their impacts. At the same time, longer periods of perpetually high heat and cold appear on the global map.
In the old days, we used to pray for rain. Now we pray for the weather person to get his or her prediction right because when they tell us rain is coming, WE WANT IT, WE NEED IT.
Then we don’t get it, and we are disappointed. It is interesting to watch our two younger kids who are still at home, with our eldest off to college. Having moved around the country several times, when they were younger, they got used to periods where steady, consistent rain fell annually. When you live in that type of situation, it becomes your normal.
Now, as we face day after day of relentless heat during the summer in north Texas, the household complaint becomes. “When is it going to rain? I can’t wait for it to rain. I wish it would rain for a month straight.” If you polled the family, most of us would agree on how much we’d look forward to long, consistent, steady soakings.
Grey skies are great. Bring on the lower temps! We’re ready.
That’s why it can be so disturbing when the weather person is the one we need to pray for since they so consistently get our weather predictions wrong. Just in the past couple of months, for example, they have gone on the record guaranteeing 1-3 inches of rain for our area three separate times. It is not a good idea to guarantee anything, when you can’t follow it up.
This creates anger, frustration and disappointment. On Monday, they will start with their “look for a weekend of showers.” As the week crawls by, it changes in terms of percentages, and then by Saturday morning it becomes a “chance of rain” that night, “tapering off into the morning.”
By 6 p.m., they’d removed any rain at all from the weather report, citing some strange concoction of variables that allowed them to get off the hook. Sunday morning arrived clear, and another weekend passed with no precipitation.
This happened three times locally over about a two month period. Each time, the report on rain surfaced early in the week, was tracked for 4-5 days, with the full expectation that it couldn’t miss us as the storm system got closer and closer. But it did.
So we continue coping with a three-year drought, and the knowledge that the weather people can’t do their jobs. It’s a double whammy.
The worst part was that as the predictions got more and more “certain,” you actually begin to believe, “They have to be right this time. They’ve been wrong the last two times, so it’s got to hit us. The third time is a charm.”
Of course, it is not. Adding tinder firewood to the blaze, the announcers also got more revved up with each passing failure, so by the third potential rainstorm, there was the possibility of six inches of rain, flash flood warnings and hail. We got a light sprinkle for 10 minutes each, three times that afternoon.
We have to look at this from the inverse proportional angle: As the weather person gets increasingly certain, we should grow increasingly cynical about his perspective. When he guarantees perfect skies, then we’ll get thunderstorms. Count on that. And pray for him.