We had occasion recently to tune into the weather channel, a site we seldom visit here in Oysterville.  Under ordinary circumstances, we believe in the adage “wait five minutes and it will change” and checking in with the weatherman really doesn’t do much for us.  We already know that “a new system is building up” somewhere out over the Pacific and that we will be the first to know of its arrival.  In my childhood, old Jimmy Anderson gave the forecast every day on his way to the store to get a “fresh” can of condensed milk. When asked, he’d look westward and say “looks like rain” or, if that was already the case, “looks like more rain.”

However, in an effort to be savvy travelers, we did tune in to the TV one early morning, hoping to learn what conditions would be along our route.  I can’t say that any of the ‘alerts’ or ‘advisories’ or other solemn and extended explanations proved to be useful, but I was impressed all over again at the way the weatherpersons have expanded their once-upon-a-time five-minute forecasts into a twenty-four/seven stream of nonsense.

I think that it might have been the weather segment of the “news” that finally prompted us to stop watching it altogether.  We had already determined that any “local” (read Seattle or Portland) channels were simply Murder and Mayhem Reports, but it was the continual forecasting, complete with maps and charts and arrows and aerial photographs that put us over the edge.  I always felt that I had inadvertently signed up for a course in weather prediction as the reasons for the forthcoming rain or snow or sunshine were explained ad nauseum.

But I digress.  Although our recent brave foray into Weatherperson Land did not accomplish our admittedly narrow purpose (that is, finding out what the weather conditions might be), we did find that there has been another amazing change in the art of weather prediction.  An entirely new vocabulary has developed:  weatherspeak.  There are “snow blooms” and “patterns of absolute instability” and “maritime air masses.”    Even more amazing were the not-in-any-dictionary-yet-printed words.  For instance, the weather (whatever it was) was “transferencing” from one system to another.  Transferencing!  Wow!

There were many other non-words but I was so boggled by them that I can’t dredge them up.  I should have taken notes.  All I could think of was how weather forecasting has taken on a life of its own and that over my 39-year teaching career I should have urged some of those first/second/third graders into a weather predicting career path.  Job security by expansion and reinvention!  Who knew?