It happened again the other night. We’re watching the weather report on television. A generic-looking man in a generic-looking suit slides back and forth before a map of the region, 1 telling us we have nothing to worry about. Only a slight chance of an isolated thunderstorm 2 after midnight. It’s 6:30 p.m.

    He smiles, tells us to have a great evening and fades away to sports. 3

    Less than an hour later, it’s pouring. And I mean pouring. Sheets-of-rain-down-the-windowpanes 4 pouring. It remains one of life’s little mysteries to me how such well-intentioned and well-trained people using such high-tech equipment can be so wrong, so often.
I’ve often said that if I made that many mistakes in front of that many people, I’d have been out of a job 35 years ago.

    I wish I could say some of my best friends were weathercasters. They aren’t. Maybe they could explain what’s going on here.

    But to give these guys and gals their due, maybe I’m just spoiled. 5

    I grew up on the windswept 6 plains of western New York. When the man on the Buffalo station said it was going to snow, it snowed. It never failed. This was October, usually around Halloween.

    He then predicted snow for the next six months, and he was never wrong. November. December. January. February. March. April. Snow. Even as a kid, I figured out this wasn’t rocket science. But at least he was always accurate.

    That was followed by the weekend of spring and two months of summer with rain in July and humidity in August.

    It never varied.

    He had no Doppler, no Storm Center, 7 no red or blue or green spots floating across his map. In fact, I’m not sure I remember a map. In those days, we all knew where we were. No map required.

    I bet he didn’t even have those spinning cups8 that measure the speed of wind. He got most of his forecast tips, I suspect, from his bones and how they felt.

    I have my simple theories why weather reporting is so inaccurate. Weathercasters rarely go outside. Nor can they see outside. Most work in windowless buildings.

    That’s the good thing about the Today show. Al Roker 9 can look outside and see that it’s raining and then report this actual fact to the rest of the country.

    My partner, Jack, is addicted to The Weather Channel 10. After I divulged that little piece of personal information a few years back, hundreds of readers wrote to sympathize with me, saying that they, too, were Weather Channel widows, thrown over for a cold front. 11

    But at least The Weather Channel has people who go outside now and then.

    With the hurricane season upon us, “Hurricane Hunk” Jim Cantore 12 can be seen on beaches in North Carolina or Texas or Florida, telling the world that Hurricane Kate or Kim or Kelly 13 has just hit shore.

    Personally, I think he’s nuts, but at least he’s outside. Not only that, he’s 100% accurate.

    Odd, I know.

    1. 一个相貌平平、衣着普通的男人在一张当地地图前走来走去。generic: 一般的，普通的。

    2. isolated thunderstorm: 局部雷暴。

    3. 他微笑着，向我们道了声晚安，就从屏幕上隐去——体育节目开始了。

    4. 作者用这个合成词来强调当时雨下得非常大。

    5. 但是要对那些气象预报员公道点儿，也许只是我被惯坏了。give sb. his due: 给某人应有的评价，公道地对待某人。

    6. windswept: 当风的，受大风侵袭的。

    7. Doppler: 这里指多普勒雷达，用于观测气象变化；Storm Center: 风暴监测中心。

    8. spinning cup: 此处指常见的旋转风速计，它利用水平旋转的风杯测风速。风越大，风杯就转得越快，连接旋转轴的仪表指针就可以指示出风速。

    9. Al Roker是电视节目Today的主持人。

    10. The Weather Channel: 美国气象频道，是美国唯一提供24小时不间断天气服务的国家有线电视网，它的内容非常丰富，有天气新闻、气象灾害分析、气象科普、气象与经济等。

    11. 几年前，我公布了一点儿（这方面的）私人信息，几百位读者都写信来表示同情，说她们也是气象频道的“弃妇”——因冷锋而被打入了冷宫。此处的Weather channel widow跟football/golf widow用法相似，是说她们的丈夫是“气象频道”的忠实观众，可以为看一个关于冷锋的节目将她们抛在一边。divulge: 泄漏（秘密等）；cold front: [气]冷锋。

    12. Jim Cantore是一名“出镜”气象学者，美国气象频道Storm Stories的主持人，几年来一直为气象频道报道飓风和其他多种 灾害性天气，曾录制特别节目“2004: Hurricane Onslaught”，故此处称他是“Hurricane Hunk”，其中Hunk为“有魅力的男子”之意。

    13. 此处的Kate, Kim和Kelly均为飓风的名字。早在18世纪，一澳大利亚气象学家突发奇想，开始用女性名字给飓风命名，这一做法迅速流行开来，后来又逐渐扩大到以男性名字和植物名称等命名飓风。