Nebraskaland

58 Nebraskaland • July 2020 MIXED BAG A couple days ago a local television weather anchor warned us of the potential for a hail storm that evening and in his grim warning – unrealized, of course – he described our impending doom with descriptions of potential hail the size of peas, 50-cent pieces and tennis balls. This would be like advertising steaks on a menu not as a 6-ounce, 10-ounce and 16-ounce, but as "the size of a shoe heel, an IHOP pancake and T-ball home plate." We need some standardization here, folks, or at least stick with one gauge when forecasting hail ... maybe nothing but coins, or nothing but fruit and vegetables, or even dog ears – hail the size of Chihuahua ears, Toy Boston Bull Terrier ears, Doberman ears and beagle ears. I've heard descriptions of snow as "the size of BB shot" but is that double aught or No. 4 shot? Snowfl akes "as big as pillow cases." Ice crystals, pogonips (look it up if you don't believe me!), powder and "crud." This is not helpful. All too often we wind up getting "2.5 inches of 30 percent chance of snow" or "4-foot drifts of likely fl urries." And what of rain drops? Sprinkles? Toad chokers? One-pint, two- pint, three-pint drops? When does fog transition into mist? Mist to drizzle? What is the standard gauge for rain? Do meteorologists stand out in storms and watch rain drops pass through a template for sizing like the one I use to size bolts? And where can I get one of these tools? Equally bewildering are temperatures, which this inquiring mind would think to be the most measurable of weather entities. But no, we have Fahrenheit, Celsius and Kelvin. (Kelvin ... I can only guess that Hobbes has his own scale, too.) Even sticking with Herr Fahrenheit's gauging we get "92 degrees and mild" and "24 degrees and mild." And just what the heck does "seasonal" mean in Nebraska, where it has snowed every month but July. As if that were not enough confusion, in the summer, we have a "heat index" to show us how miserable we really should feel, and then in the winter wind-chill index to do the same the other way. Why can't at least one forecaster give us summer wind chill and winter heat index so we feel better instead of worse? Don't get me started on wind. I once put up a wind vane here. A neighbor looked at it, shook his head, and said, "That'll never work in Nebraska, Rog. It only points in one direction at a time!" Compounding all these unnecessarily imposed variations, we live in Nebraska. I don't know about you, but Nebraska weather provides this born, grown and stayed Bug Eater enough variety. But no. It's not enough to put Continental Climate – as satisfying as a "continental breakfast" – on our plates. Every evening we are also dished up "averages," "typical" and "normal." Hahahahahahahaha! "Average!" In Nebraska! If there ain't no crying in baseball there is most assuredly no "average" in Nebraska. It's merely another device used to make the extremes all the more so. What's normal in Nebraska is extremes. The only thing "average" is what we don't expect. A Nebraska farmer was once asked how the corn was doing over his way. He provided the perfect Nebraska answer: "Not as good as expected but then no one thought it would be." A large proportion of my bibliography consists of books and articles about tall tales. That speaks not only to my personal tastes in humor but to what I believe to be a specialty of the region. I have called it "reverse bragging," because Nebraskans seem actually quite delighted when weather deals out its worst. "Hot enough for you?" "That was some wind last night, wasn't it?" "So dry, a catfi sh came up to our sprinkler to get a drink!" Always said with a grin. I have long suggested that our state motto should be "It could be worse." So, OK, I'm going to back my way out of this rant and instead go with the fl ow. My Lakota name designates me as a Contrary, because the wise Oglala who dubbed me commented that I "laugh at things other people take seriously and take seriously what other people laugh at." And now that I think about it, one of my favorite exhibits at the National Liars Hall of Fame, once located here in Dannebrog, but now driven out of business by professionals and specialists in mendacity, was a box of golf balls the size of hailstones. Yeah, that's it. Let's leave weather where it is and start changing everything else to fi t. Golf balls the size of hailstones. "Why, that beagle's ears are as big as the snowfl akes that fell at my place last January 15th!" Roger Welsch is an author, humorist, folklorist and a former essayist for CBS News Sunday Morning. He has been contributing to Nebraskaland Magazine since 1977. NEBRASKA WEATHER, WHETHER OR NOT By Roger Welsch

• Cover