ANAHEIM : Forecasters Soaking Up the Weather

You might say it rained on the meteorologists’ parade.

For months, weather prognosticators around the nation have been looking forward to their annual convention at the Disneyland Hotel. Many forecasters in frigid Eastern and Midwestern states said they savored thoughts of sunny Southern California: Palms . . . and swimming pools . . . tornadoes.

Tornadoes?

“Anyone who would have thought we’d be putting out a tornado warning for Southern California would have thought we were smoking something,” joked E.W. (Joe) Friday Jr. of the National Weather Service in Washington.

Friday is among 1,500 weather experts and business exhibitors taking part in the 73rd annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society. The event opened here Sunday amid monsoon-like rain, chilling winds and a tornado in nearby Lake Forest. On Monday, there was more rain, more chilling winds and another tornado, this time in Huntington Beach.

On Tuesday, a pale sun occasionally shone through a dark buildup of clouds. The visiting weather experts for once could walk to Disneyland without umbrellas. But they said the soggy grass, the rain-drenched palms and the threatening skies still didn’t look like Southern California.

“Mother Nature may have kept a few people away,” Friday said.

But on the other hand, Friday and some other meteorologists said the freakish local weather had its good points. They said it provided an instant outdoor laboratory. And the weather convention suddenly became popular with the news media, they noted.

The upsurge in press interest particularly pleased the commercial exhibitors at the convention.

“We thought the press wouldn’t be very interested because this was presidential inauguration week, our troops are in Somalia, and the conflict in Iraq was going on,” said Gene Benuzzi of PRC Inc., based in McLean, Va. “We quite frankly didn’t expect that weather-related activities would be of much interest to the local community.”

The Pacific storms changed all that, Benuzzi said. Suddenly, weather became big news, and the convention became a magnet for reporters.

“Lo and behold, we come out here and you guys are having the heaviest rain episode in recent history,” Benuzzi said. “Even tornadoes! And tornadoes are so rare out here!” With a grin, he added: “Is there a cause and effect? Are we to blame? I hope not.”

Jose G. Meitin Jr. of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., said: “The weather here has been kind of interesting.” He said he hadn’t heard others at the convention complain about the weather. But he said they certainly were talking about it. “They were saying it’s odd,” Meitin said. “But we’re accustomed to running into bad weather. It’s part of the charm.”

Others were less sanguine about the lack of sun.

Mike Stugrin of Concurrent Computer Corp. of Oceanport, N.J., ruefully said that his company had brought souvenir sunglasses to give away at the convention. “We should have brought umbrellas to give away!” he said. “We thought we were coming to Southern California, and instead we came into the land of the floods, the tempests and the tornadoes.”

Julie Campbell of the National Weather Service in Washington added: “Actually, meteorologists love this kind of weather. These guys like bad weather. The meteorologists have been flocking around the (radar) screens ever since they got here. It gives them something to talk about. It’s been a convention icebreaker.”

Benuzzi and several others at the convention readily agreed. They said that despite their jokes about the unusual Southern California weather, they really were having a great time. And that, they said, is because of the bad weather--not in spite of it.

“Weathermen are kind of funny,” Benuzzi said. “You have to realize that. We’re the kind of people who, when a hurricane is going on, we’re out there in our slickers, saying: ‘Wow! Look at that!’ ”