I’m An Amateur Meteorologist

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It was a Thursday afternoon. I sat at my desk, contemplating life, doing everything I could to not work on the massive project in front of me when a guy from down the hall popped his head in my office door.

“Hey man, you doing anything this weekend?”

Every week this guy asks me the same question. I usually have the same answer of “Not much, you?” because I don’t feel it’s my responsibility to let him know what I’m doing when I’m not sitting in my office slaving away. He, as usual, began to go on for about three-to-four minutes about all his weekend plans, and the only phrase that I remembered was something about golfing on Saturday. I asked him where, and he told me a course in a town nearby. I looked up and finally made eye contact with him, looking straight into his soul.

“Nah man, you’re not golfing. It’s going to rain.”

He looked somewhat sad. He shrugged his shoulders and said that if it did actually rain he would play next weekend. I continued to look him dead in the eye.

“Nope. Looking like some severe thunderstorms at the end of next week. Even if it does clear up before maybe next Sunday, the course will be soaked. The sun won’t be out yet and humidity is going to be pushing 85%. Would be absolutely miserable out there.”

At this point, the guy’s jaw dropped. He made some little weatherman joke and retreated back to his office. I felt a slight grin grow across my face, filled with some weird sensation of joy that I actually knew what I was talking about. I then stared at my computer for a couple minutes, and my grin turned into a frown as I realized I have a serious addiction to checking the weather.

My weather addiction started at a young age. I used to watch Twister every single day. When I was four, I was a tornado for Halloween. My dad actually made me my own tornado costume. As soon as I could read, I read all the weather books, and I used to watch The Weather Channel for fun.

My teachers used to hate me because I was always spewing out weather forecasts. My friends all called me Weatherman (and many other things that are not PG-13). Growing up on a farm, I had to be aware of the weather. Deciding when to make hay was a big ordeal worth tens of thousands of dollars. If we were off by just one day or half a day because we didn’t pay attention to the weather, money was gone in a second just because of some rain.

I know the difference between a storm watch and a storm warning. I know that pink radar in the summer is different than pink radar in the winter. I know when a storm will make the temperature drop the next day. I know when the pressure is going through major changes. I check multiple weather websites. I have an entire Weather folder on my phone full of multiple weather apps. I check the weather at least five times a day but usually more like ten or fifteen. I’m beginning to think I might actually have a serious addiction.

Next time you try to make small talk with someone about the weather, be careful. You may end up running into a wannabe meteorologist like me who will give you a two minute answer that you don’t want to hear. I might even continue on and on about the next week or two of weather, or maybe the month, or the season as whole. I don’t do it on purpose, I just can’t stop myself.

I checked the weather four times while I was writing this. Someone please help me..

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Delph

I'm just a cultured redneck that coaches hoops.

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