Photo by Cynthia Larsen

“Soon It’s Gonna Rain”: a scary Streisand song

By Ed Goldman

Even though climate change has made it hard to predict weather cycles, one thing we can depend on, no matter the season, is the weather reporting cycle.  

It works something like this: If a fierce storm is building up in an ocean near you, TV weather reporters sometimes use as many as five full days to scare the grape nuts out of us about the imminent dangers we’re facing. These include, but are not limited to, torrential downpours (“as much as six inches of rain in a 12-hour period!”), the possible “loss of lives and property” and, as a spoiler alert, the “months of cleanup ahead.” 

Charles Dudley Warner was correct when he wrote, “Everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.” (No, Mark Twain didn’t say it, much as he’s credited for having done so. If it’s any consolation, Twain and Warner were pals and occasional collaborators.)  

That situation hasn’t changed much, with the possible exception of cloud seeding and rain dances of Hopi, Navaho and Pueblo Native American tribes, among others who live in constant states of aridity—or to turn that on its head, states of constant aridity, such as New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. But talking about the weather has expanded, almost exponentially. 

That may help TV news programs, and cable-TV ‘s 24/7 Weather Channel keep viewers glued to the screen because everyone loves a good suspense movie. I’m surprised the stations don’t add creepy don’t-look-in-the-closet yeep! yeep! yeep! music to enhance our dread when a storm is due.  

The trouble is, when a predicted “stormageddon” or apocalyptic avalanche either fizzles or simply never happens—or even worse, when weathercasters call for sprinkles but a thrumming thunderstorm shows up—who gets the blame? Not the Lord Thy God nor Mother Nature. Nope. The weathercasters. 

I think they bring this on themselves—not because they make a bad call (we tend to forgive, and we most assuredly forget) but because many of them opt to own their prognostications. This is especially true for local weather reporters. Dialing up the folksiness to 11, they’ll say, “Well, we’re bringing you a break in the rain for a few days.” You are? Are you the Lord Thy God? Are you Mother Nature? Did you even take a night course in meteorology—even on a pass/fail basis or for no college credits? 

Years ago, some medical tests and occasional joint pain— if a throbbing fingernail counts as an official joint—confirmed I had arthritis. I thought I’d make a decent weathercaster because I could tell from 36 to 48 hours in advance if the weather was going to make a dramatic change. It could be about to go from hot to cold or from sunny to rainy (or vice versa for either) and my body would out-predict Doppler Radar at least 75 percent of the time. 

My late wife Jane, who worked as a reporter and sometime anchor for the NBC-TV affiliate in Sacramento years ago, said she wanted to rent me to the station from time to time to verify the on-air predictions made by its licensed weathercaster (and friend) Kristine Hanson.  

But Kristine’s reports were usually spot-on; so even though I welcomed the notion of establishing a profit center for our marriage, I politely demurred. And when Jane told me she’d actually been joking, I pretended I’d known that all along and was just trying to join in the fun.