Let's talk about the weather

I titled this photo “Mostly cloudy with rain” to call attention to something that has been bothering me.

For the last three weekends, our weather forecast has been absolutely terrible. The weather itself doesn’t seem to be paying attention, and folks in Leelanau County have been rewarded with three pretty darn nice spring weekends. Sure, there has been a some rain and temps that are a bit cool, but it is May and we’re supposed to see some of that.

What I imagine we haven’t seen is as many folks taking a quick trip north to enjoy the cherry blossoms and other sights of spring as we would had our forecasts been a little less dire.

I understand that weather forecasting is a difficult job and that forecasters have a duty to “call it as they see it.” I’m wondering, however, if there’s any way that those forecasts be presented in such a way to acknowledge that a 40% chance of rain means a 60% chance of no rain, that mostly cloudy and partly sunny are almost the same, that a little rain is going to hurt anyone and that a little sun and some beautiful sights might help them a whole lot!

Please consider this as you do your difficult job – I know that the travel-based businesses of Leelanau and the rest of Michigan would thank you for that.

In any case, there were some great blossoms out there last weekend that you can see in my Cherry Blossoms 2008 slideshow. All are at “wallpaper” size – get this one bigger right here!