I think being a meteorologist is one of the toughest jobs in Missouri.
Think about it: How often is the weather forecast not entirely correct or simply dead wrong?
Even last Saturday, the forecast was “mostly cloudy” and there was hardly a cloud in the sky all day.
It stands to reason, though, that predicting weather conditions in the middle section of the giant chunk of real estate known as North America would be highly challenging. Air masses from virtually all directions can descend on Missouri, sometimes from very different angles within a short time frame.
And as we who live here know, things can change in a hurry. That can frequently make trying to forecast the “expected” weather more than a day out pretty hard.
Basically, it’s guesswork. And “long range” forecasts? Forget about it; in this part of the world, they’re often just a waste of time, and you know a “revised forecast” is coming.
There’s such a you-never-know factor involved in trying to predict weather here. There aren’t many places on the planet where temperatures can vary as much as they do in the Missouri Ozarks. To illustrate that, consider some of the record high and record low temperatures in Houston for dates this time of year (according to the Weather Channel’s Weather Underground website): On Feb. 3, the record high is 80 degrees Fahrenheit and the record low is minus 8, and on Feb. 4, the record high is 79 and the record low is minus 10.
No doubt about it, those are some massive swings.
Of course, we’ve had a taste of that kind of variety this winter (as is the case almost every year), as the high on Monday of this week was 75 and only a matter of days before that we saw the mercury drop to the zero mark, or slightly below that, depending on where you happened to be looking at a thermometer.
And it’s not just about temperatures. Predicting precipitation is also hard in these parts.
I mean, how many times have we heard that a winter storm is expected to drop “1-to-3 inches” of snow, and we get 6 or 8? On the flip side, how many times have we heard “3-to-5 inches” and we get little more than a dusting?
Same with rain. There might be a forecast of 1-to-2 inches and we get another “500-year flood.” Or there’s supposed to be a gully washer and it turns out to be a drizzle (or less).
Or there might be a prediction of some wind, and a 75-mile-an-hour straight line wind blows down trees and rips off roofs.
When I describe some of our yo-yo weather swings to relatives out West or in the deep Southeast, they have a hard time grasping that the numbers are actual. But the fact is, April could include snow or 90-degree heat, and November cold bring winter or an extended period of “Indian Summer.” We can have below zero readings on several occasions in January or February, but come July and August, it’s guaranteed to be “hot and humid” with the temperature hovering around 100 in the daytime and maybe dropping a degree or two below 80 at night.
But you know what? I think it’s kind of cool that we get to experience real heat, real cold and pretty much every other form of weather.
If nothing else, it sure keeps things interesting.
Doug Davison is a writer, photographer and newsroom assistant for the Houston Herald. Email: ddavison@houstonherald.com.