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"If you don't like the weather..." well, you probably know the rest of this oft quoted quip. If you don't, then "...wait a minute." It is used in practically every region of the country to explain what the weather is going to do next, when any other method of weather prediction might likely be just as accurate.

For as long as man has looked up to the sky and scratched his head, consulted his wall-mounted barometer, or used his aching big toe, back pain, animal signs, cloud formations, or even complex computerized modeling to forecast the weather, he has rarely ever been right.

"Predicting the weather" actually might not be the correct term to use. It conjures visions of a meteorologist wearing a fez, sitting in a haze filled, dark room peering into a crystal ball trying to determine the future course of weather. Although one does not see a meteorologist's weather expectations referred to in newspapers, on television, or the Internet as "Weather Predictions." They are usually called "forecasts." Forecasts reflect short-term guesses, while predictions are reserved for more long-term possibilities, like what the climate might do. The definitions of the two words, prediction and forecast, might nearly be the same, and they are synonymous, but the latter word implies more of an uncertainty as used in our lexicon.

And that is what weather forecasting is-uncertainty. Since time immemorial, man has never been able to predict, or forecast weather with 100 percent accuracy. The only time that could happen is if a meteorologist is broadcast live, soaking wet, in front of a television camera announcing that it is raining after just standing out in a downpour. Beyond that, the accuracy of any weather forecast, or percentage of likelihood that the forecast is going to be correct, drops significantly with time from when the forecast is made.

Even with the aid of sophisticated computers and statistical and numerical models to run upon them, the variables that affect weather patterns anywhere on this planet are numerous. They include traditional methods such as observation of atmospheric phenomena and processing of data. What they do not yet include are the dynamics of the Earth's geologic processes, variability of oceanic water temperatures and salinity, how much radiation is received from the Sun at any given time, precession of the Earth's axis wobble, or the Earth's proximity to the Sun at any point in its revolution around it. When the meteorologists can understand how all

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