Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1958-04-17
Beauty at Your Back Door
Weather Vagaries
Are On Increase
BY Roy Lee Yinger


leted from all newspapers it is the weather fore
cast. For the weather forecast is, something
like prophecy - it may come true and it may
not come true
A weather prediction has always reminded
me of Hamlets famous words, words, words"
And while the melancholy Dane was actually
referring to the ineffectiveness and Inadequate
ness of speech which emanated from the mouth
of the female of the species, the words Of a
weather forecast are much the same Check
forecast for week as given out by the news
papers and the radio and you will see what
mean.
Any newspaper that is any kind of news
paper usually takes pride on the accuracy of its
reporting. But do not know of single such
newspaper which does not print = and makes
no apology for printing the almost always
imaginative, inaccurate weather report. The Mont
gomery County Sentinel too is now printing
the five-day forecast.
If were the editor of daily paper / would
check on the weather reports printed. If they
We're consistently wrong - I'd cut them out al
together In the weather ear on page one I'd
have something like this Your guess is as good
as ours" At least this would be honest report
ing, and would be whole lot better than the
mixed-up tommyrot we are served up with
daily.
Man is wonderful animal Many marvellous
things he has done. He has learned to fly through
the air like bird, he can live normal life even
at the bottom of the ocean, he has found
way to pluck sound and even pictures out of the
air, he has invented intricate machinery which
will do some almost implausible things But
there is one science he doesn't know much about,
the science of meteorology.
And it isn't because he hasn't tried to do
something about the weather. The United States
weather bureau was established in 1870 to study
the phenomena of the air. Today most of our
weather forecasts emanate from Washington.
In this part of the country as far as l am
concerned there are only two seasons - Summer
and Winter. We experience only a vestige of
Spring and the falling of the leaves is merely
quick prelude to the storms of winter Can
anyone deny this?
During World War when it rained so inces-
sanity, there were a lot of people who blamed
it on the big guns booming over in France. Wheth-
er this had anything to do with the raining,
do not know - but this do know up and until
atomic bomb testing the natives on the tropical
atoll OF EinewetoS off the coast of Guam, planted
their crops during the six months dry season
which followed the six months wet" season. How
ever, after the bombs started going off the gen.
eral climate changed drastically that today the
weather is so unpredictabe that planting is done
at any time at all. There are no more Seasons"
There are many people today who fervently
believe that the untoward Spring and general dis
agreeable and unpleasant weather is nothing but
an aftermath of screaming rockets and satellites
that have dsorganized the very atmosphere of
the air above us. And it certainly is not beyond
belief that we may have in some way or another,
upset the balance of nature - nature which
is not to be trifled with / would not like to
commit myself to this theory but doubt that
there are very few who read this who will not
agree with me when l say that this winter has
been one of the worst - the most prolonged -
the most unpleasant = the most unpredictable
that we have any knowledge of. And the end
is not yet in sight Have we been tampering
with nature too much?
The weather problem occupied the minds of
aboriginal man, who could probably figure it
out almost as well or better than we do TODAY
with our expensive, modern equipment. The
seasonal changes, the elements, the sky itself were
considerations affecting his very necessities for
preservation. The weather folklore of the ages
should not be taken so lightly. The ring around
the moon, is almost sure.fire that IT will rain;
the Indians held that when the quarter.rnoon
was upended II was full of rain. There are car,
deners and farmers hereabouts who will tell YOU
there viii be no rain on the day there is dew
on the grass in the early morning; TO many
the color OF the sun at sunrise and sunset is
prophetic OF drastic weather change. One