Wind from the South in Oysterville

     We awoke yesterday morning to the sound of rain.  I’m not sure it was exactly the pitter-patter variety; more the pelting sort.  “A rainy day,” I thought.  “The girls will want to be let out of their run.  It gets way too muddy in the rain.”
     Soon, however, I heard the wind.  At first it was in gusty belches but soon it came in a rather steady roar.  “Not a rainy day,” I thought.  “A stormy day.  Those chickens are just out of luck until it lets up a little.  I’m staying indoors!”
     I’m not sure what the technical difference between “rainy” and “stormy” is, but here in Oysterville it has to do with wind.  Also, there is rain and then there is rain.  Some of it we call “mist,” some we call “drizzle,” and when it’s coming down in sheets, it’s “really rainy.”
     I doubt that the weathermen would agree.  Now that they are called meteorologists and the TV news is about equally divided between news bytes, sports reviews, and weather education, – heck, the weather folks even have their own channel – we’ve stopped paying attention to them.  High pressure areas, outward flows, measurable precipitation, and occluded fronts just don’t cut it with us.  Besides, their forecasts aren’t much more accurate than ours.  Plus, they don’t ever talk about the peninsula.  Somehow we don’t count.
     In Oysterville we forecast our weather by looking up at the southwestern sky.  That’s where most of our weather comes from.  If there are gray clouds coming, we predict mist or drizzle.  If the clouds are black, a storm is heading in.  If there are white clouds with a bit of blue sky, it’s clearing.  And as far as tomorrow goes, we count on a change.  Here at the beach you can always count on that.