And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that this is being written on Labor Day.

And once again, skies are dark and rain is threatening, and actually falling a few miles south this-morning. The day comes after a week during which there might have been one rainless day, and starts a week when forecasters say there may only be a day or two without rain.

It isn’t forty days and forty nights yet, but we suspect Noah has the boat plans handy.

And I also suspect the weather people are doing handstands, since dire forecasts are their raison d’etre; their reason for existing.

For example, a new tropical storm has earned a name, in the Florida and Gulf Coast area, so we can expect to see television personalities standing out in heavy rain and strong winds, to prove the storm is there, as if we would not believe it if they stayed inside and pointed cameras outside.

And radio weather people will warn us about the chance of thunderstorms each day. We used to call them thundershowers, but storms sound more serious.

Thunderstorm forecasts usually contain the warning of “possible strong winds, heavy rains and hail, with a tornado not ruled out.”

And sometimes, all that comes true.

For some, but not all.

One day last week, when I was thinking about taking the car out, there was a sudden burst of hail. One hail stone on my front yard looked to be about the size of an English walnut, big enough to dent a car. But I talked to people who were outside elsewhere in Waukon at the same time and they saw no hail.

Damage is spotty.

I saw lots of photos of small towns in nearby Wisconsin which were absolutely devastated by recent flooding.

And apparently that was true for some Iowa towns last night.

Despite the lousy forecast, I noticed there was a rising barometer this morning. In the weather course to which I was exposed in the Navy, where we also learned about the compass and sextant, I think we were told that a rising barometer was a sign of upcoming fair weather.

Maybe all signs fail in wet weather as well as in dry weather.

But we are not alone in being at the mercy of the weather.

Even in the “paradise” for weather of Hawaii, they have had wind and floods to tolerate, to say nothing of an erupting volcano.

And in California, and other spots on the left coast, there was been a plague of wildfires.

At least it is something to talk about.