Happy Weather Forecast For Us

This has been a tough springtime to rely on the weatherman, but this afternoon we Hill Country Riders have reason to be hopeful. The National Weather Service puts a discussion of the weather conditions out on its pages for every location. It's written in real meterologist-speak, all capital letters (the kind forecasters were once stuck with on teletyped reports) and some terms not often used on the TV news:

THE COOL NWLY FLOW ALOFT WILL TRANSITION TO A WARMER WESTERLY FLOW FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE WEEK. THIS WILL RESULT IN INCREASING SOUTHERLY WINDS TODAY AND FRIDAY WITH A RETURN OF SHALLOW GULF MOISTURE TONIGHT AHEAD OF THE NEXT FRONTAL SYSTEM LATE FRIDAY. UNFORTUNATELY THE NEXT TROF THAT WILL PUSH A PACIFIC COLD FRONT THRU S TX LATE FRIDAY WILL DO LITTLE IN THE WAY TO GENERATE ANY NEEDED PRECIPITATION AS MOISTURE AGAIN LACKING. FRIDAY LOOKS TO BE VERY WARM WITH THE DRY LINE AHEAD OF THE COLD FRONT AND WILL LIKELY SEE NEAR 90-90S FOR HIGHS MOST AREAS...SIMILAR TO LAST FRIDAY. ANOTHER PLEASANT WEEKEND WITH SLIGHTLY COOLER AND DRIER CONDS. BY EARLY NEXT WEEK...THE LONG RANGE MODELS POINT TO A SHIFT TOWARDS AND MORE ACTIVE WSWLY FLOW ALOFT WHICH COULD RESULT IN DEEPER MOISTURE ALONG WITH MUCH IMPROVED RAIN CHANCES AS A SERIES OF DISTURBANCES MOVE ACROSS NRN MEXICO AND INTO WEST TEXAS. HAVE INCREASE POPS FOR EARLY NEXT WEEK INTO THE MID WEEK AS THE ECMWF AND GFS APPEARS IN FAIR AGREEMENT WITH THIS WETTER UPPER AIR PATTERN.

Translation: Warmer until Friday, but the cold front doesn't contain moisture. Windy, but not much chance of rain. Yahoo!

After last year's damp ride, this could be a spectacular alternative. Reminds me of a call-and-answer I heard on a Hill Country training ride when the skies threatened:

Ride Leader: So what do you do when it rains?

Riders [saddled and ready to pedal their bikes]: You get wet!

Weather is something we all have an opinion about, the subject we all believe we understand. But you read the discussion above and perhaps you'll see there's more to accurate forecasting.

Once upon a time in my life I wanted to be a weatherman. Upon enlisting in the US Army, I considered getting weather training as a job in 1976. The idea got nixed when I learned I had to train at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Too far out in the sticks for me then: north of Geronimo, south of Apache (town names), just a short drive to Oklahoma City. I needed an Army posting with more than one community theatre to play in, anyway. In the job I took at Fort Hood, Texas — just a short drive from Austin — I got only close enough to weatherman skills to use a radio teletype, transmitting troop and vehicle status in all caps, just like those weathermen.

And okay, they're weather-persons. But regardless of their gender, forecasters by their very discription usually try to eye some point in the future. This season it's been so volatile there has been little reason to look even three days ahead. I'll risk it today.