Partly Funny, Chance of Drivel

Being a TV weatherperson has got to be the best job in the world. Sure, being an ice cream taster at Ben & Jerry’s, Leonardo DiCaprio or the head of human resources for the Acme Porn Flick Co. are also good career choices, but they don’t afford you the luxury of screwing up 365 days in a row while not only keeping your job but getting a raise.

Think about it. If doctors, airline pilots and dry cleaners had the same success rate as TV weatherpeople, there would be a major uprising. But for some reason weather forecasters are exempt from the normal guidelines of job performance. Maybe, as in kindergarten, “plays well with others,” “shares” and “goes potty by himself” really are the most important personal attributes.

I understand that weather forecasting -- formally known as meteorology, from the Greek for “meatier paycheck” -- isn’t an exact science, but it’s not right that my horoscope is more accurate than the three-day forecast. We can put cherries inside chocolate without the juice leaking out, yet we can’t say with better than a 25% probability whether it will rain six hours from now. Something’s wrong with this picture.

It’s not as if TV weatherpeople are stupid. Quite the contrary. Most of them probably went to college, which means they spent five or six of the best years of their life taking courses like “Silly Weather System Names 201,” “Inane Banter 405” and “Advanced Clowning Techniques.” See, they figure that if they’re entertaining enough it will take our minds off the rain that’s about to wash away our house when just a few hours ago they said it would be sunny and warm. They act as if this joking around is a steppingstone to a late-night talk show. After all, it worked for David Letterman.

Yet for all their reporting stations -- that’s right, get those elementary school kids to do your work for you! -- Doppler radar, barometers and divination of chicken entrails, they still use professional help, though maybe not the kind we think they should be getting. Every TV station subscribes to several forecasting services, such as the National Weather Service and Madame Gloria’s Psychic Hotline and Spanish Delicatessen. The weatherperson’s job, actually, is to cull through these and choose which forecast they think will be right. So it turns out that not only is their forecast usually wrong, so is their choice of which forecasting service to believe.

Maybe we should quit griping about weatherpeople and just learn from them. “There’s a 50% chance of getting that hamburger the way you want it” would take pressure off waiters. And personally, being able to say, “Doppler radar indicates this article will be partly funny with a chance of light drivel followed by gusts of hot, blustery air” would get me off the hook.