So for this month’s column I thought to do something related to the number 100. My initial idea was to write about the hundred-dollar bill, but that seemed churlish given that a lot of people right now are experiencing a shortage of that particular denomination. Times are tough for many folks, and one thing they do not need is to be reminded of what they don’t have.
What does everybody have? What commonality circulates around the number 100? This being Arizona, often the first thing that comes to mind for residents as well as visitors is the temperature. Every radio and television weather broadcast seems to have a contest offering prizes for the individual who can pick the first day and sometimes the exact time of day the temperature in Phoenix, or Yuma, or Tucson, will hit a hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
It’s a good thing the Founding Fathers didn’t listen to Benjamin Franklin or we would somehow have to struggle along without these contests. Franklin wanted the nascent US to adopt the much more sensible metric system. In Celsius, a hundred degrees Fahrenheit is 37.77 degrees. This is plainly an insufficiently catchy number on which to base a weather contest. Similarly, a hundred degrees Celsius is 212 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point goofy weather contests become untenable. Also our species and pretty much everything else.
I reckon I have seen tens of thousands of television weathercasts. In these days of fast internet connections and wristwatches that are smarter than their wearers, the weather forecast is available instantly nearly everywhere in the world. Such forecasting has transformed farming in Africa and fishing in the Pacific. But we still have our television weather segments to break up the actual news and force us to wait for the sports. Green screens and remote controls notwithstanding, these weathercasts represent a link with the television past. Presentations are sufficiently traditional that there is actually very little to differentiate a TV weather forecast of today from those in the early days of the medium.
Still, some things don’t change. For example, in hopes of gaining viewers many station managers experiencing low ratings tend to favor attractive women to present the weather. They may have advanced degrees in meteorology or competing in beauty pageants, and I do not need to explain which one will get you on the air faster. Having both is a rare combination. Failing that, there is a noticeable correlation between the ability to speak rapidly the higher up one rises in national weather presentations on the major networks. The principal weather folk on all the national US channels talk so fast that they might as well be explaining binary code instead of the cold front currently passing through Dubuque.
In contrast, weather presenters in other countries aim for comprehension instead of speed. I enjoy watching the weather on the BBC, not only because the presentation is sedate (although even the Brits seem to be shoveling it at us faster and faster these days, just like Americans), but also because the Beeb gives us the weather for the entire planet. There’s a bit of a guilty pleasure in enjoying the weather in Arizona while Shanghai is bracing for a typhoon. Tracking the seasonal monsoon in India brings those of us in Arizona a bit closer to the other side of the world.
There are a few things about the traditional TV weathercast that still bother me, though. Why is it that when I really need to see the forecast for Prescott and the weather map is on screen, the presenter always seems to be standing in front of Prescott? And that map! The names of the cities are writ so large it is impossible even for those of us who have lived in this state a long time to locate our communities. Take Casa Grande. On the weather maps, you can scarcely tell by looking at the longish name whether the city lies in the western or eastern portion of the state, much less pinpoint its exact location. In addition to the city names, why can’t weather maps put in little stars or something to indicate exactly where a city is situated? Somehow I think the relevant expensive software could handle that.
At least we don’t live in a vast metropolitan area like greater Phoenix. Presumably the folks who dwell in the Valley of the Sun have some idea where their homes are located when the city weather map appears. Is it really necessary to show the same temperature (maybe a degree difference now and then) between Gilbert and Chandler, downtown Phoenix and Glendale? All those similar, often identical forecasts just crowd the map.
Last, I have to plead with the station weather folk. Please, please, when you’re showing weather rolling through Arizona, could you maybe run through the weather’s progress at a speed lower than supersonic? As it is, within seconds an incoming, developing storm has traveled on the map from Yuma to Window Rock. Then you repeat it. At the same ridiculous speed. Over and over. Maybe you stop the video once. Twice, if the viewer is lucky. Honestly, while you are talking couldn’t you slow down the video so we can actually see where and when the rain or snow is going to materialize?
Unlike the inevitable follow-up plug for the chili festival in Apache Junction, that would actually be useful, weather-wise.
Prescott resident Alan Dean Foster is the author of 130 books. Follow him at AlanDeanFoster. com.
