Surely I misread that

Like most Canadians, for me this has been a less than stellar summer. In the spring we were warned to brace ourselves. The summer, we were told, was going to be hot and dry but promises by the weather office are not the kind you can take to the bank. They are more like, "The cheques in the mail" and those other hollow promises.

Saskatchewan is usually pretty hot anyway. Most summers we wait for our lawns to turn brown to we don't have to bother cutting the grass any more.

So we waited for that hot dry weather through June, July and August but, much to our chagrin, it was a no show. OK, so it got hot for a few days in September. Whop-dee-do.

So here it is October. It is cold, rainy and windy. In most of Canada when winds pick up to 90 km they talk about close to hurricane force winds. Here on the prairies we say, "Bit of a breeze out there eh"

I can take the wind out there but I must tell you, I was more than a bit pissed about that snow icon that turned up this morning in the corner of Leader Post's weather page.

It looks like the beginning of a long hard winter. At least things seem to be back to normal.

How does it Look Outside?

There was an article in the paper today suggesting that Canadians don’t have much faith in our weather forecasting.

Really?

Where I live, in Regina, the long range forecasts seldom actually match what those prevailing westerlies bring us, day in and day out. Of course, the meteorologists responsible for predicting our weather live in Winnipeg, a six hour drive to the east of us. They can't even take a look outside and give it their best shot, or perhaps they do.

My sense is that we’d have better luck if Environment Canada re-located those guys to Calgary. At least that would give them a 50-50 chance of getting it right.

That damn five day forecast changes radically day to day. I am not sure why I even look at it.

When they say predicting weather is a gamble, I thing they are right. I figure that every morning a few of the Environment Canada staff get together around a big felt covered table and bring out the five forecast dice. I imagine that each side has on it a different icon, the sun, rain, sunny with a bit of cloud, cloudy with a bit of sun, you know what I mean. Then they roll them and what ever comes up, goes on their site and gets sent to newspapers as the five day forecast.

At least that is the most logical explanation I could come up with.