Cloudy with a chance of politics

Ahhhh, the warm air masses created by politicians in full oration could thaw the coldest day of winter. What would we do without them? Hmmmm. Naw, not worth sending everyone down south anywhere in North America during the winter months. It’s better they hang around home where it’s minus-40 on any average day. We need all that hot air anyways.

According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the only real trustworthy form of climate prediction, there will be five more storms to contend with until Easter and then afterwards, the warmth comes back. So it looks like we are in for some early geese. It’ll be wet though, so be prepared for slushy conditions on the skidoo trails.

Another cool thing about the Farmer’s Almanac is that they sell canoe-shaped cribbage boards, which I’m thinking of actually taking up again – canoeing with a deck of cards in my back pocket. The best thing about this great source of information is that there’s no politics involved to influence the atmosphere, so it’s a pleasure to peruse.

Talking about the weather, weather forecasting back in the day was an art based on well-known tools at hand, such as your local guy who worked at the airport. I worked in the aviation industry for a number of years and learned old-school ways of forecasting using a barometer. Working at the airport – which was just a very long open area of sand servicing two airlines – it was always wise to get all the other daily updates from the other stations along the two coasts of James Bay.

For example, whatever the weather was in Attawapiskat on the west coast of the bay was usually about six hours away from hitting the east coast. This worked quite accurately and I would get calls from the usual guys who wanted to know what the conditions would be at 2:00 pm. Little did I know that these frequent callers had a running bet on my forecasting abilities and apparently I made a few believers out of my critics.

My mentor, the late Walter Pachanos, was able to call the weather conditions by looking out a little window and logging faithfully every call in the radio log. This radio log went back many years and he would pull out the weather report from the year before just to compare it to that day. This often came with a great story and I learnt a lot of bawdy history about the good old days when talking about the weather got a little boring.

Today weather forecasting is a highly skilled technological display of wonderful graphics blasted out at you in so many ways. It’s getting so saturated with multimedia forecasting that it’s more fun to look for mistakes than take the report for granted. But when out of range of any electronic device, it’s good to retain some natural ability to tell weather by eye or feel. For example, if it feels wet outside, it’s probably raining.

But age-old ways seem to be just as accurate as the latest array of radar weather stations. Try standing with your back to the wind then stick your left hand straight out, to the left. Point your finger that way and that’s where the low-pressure system is and where the next batch of bad weather is coming from. The opposite holds true for figuring out where the high-pressure system is.

Another way is to listen to the winds up in the higher atmosphere: if you can hear the winds from the ground, it is most likely the jet stream up high. This helps in the long-range forecast for windier days, which generally means clear but windy times are ahead. If you hear these sounds on a cloudy or overcast day, get ready for cyclonic activities and put your golfing plans on hold. If it sounds like a freight train, get ready for a long trip away from Kansas.

Weather aside, my forecast for this summer will only be known in July and there won’t be any need for politicking to keep us warm. Then they can all take a holiday – or a hike.