What’s behind fascination with weather forecasts?
It gives us a predictive assurance we can’t get anywhere else
Did you hear the frigid weather forecast for Wednesday? What a stupid question. Of course you did.
For every tomorrow on our calendar, we know what’s going on with the weather more than we know what’s going on with our own children. Or, heck, with ourselves. But why? Maybe it’s a primal thing. Or maybe it’s our only true unifier in a country of historically stormy differences.
“How ‘bout the weather today?”
This simple query has started countless conversations with strangers in public places. Despite dozens of other topics available for debate, discussion or exploration, we circle back to the weather like trusty boomerangs tossed into the air.
“It’s supposed to get much colder on Wednesday, I hear,” an elderly neighbor told me Monday as we shoveled our sidewalks.
“Yeah, I heard that,” I shouted back from across the street.
While shoveling, I concluded that weather forecasts are a handy barometer for people’s sensibilities about life. Some people tend to overreact to weather reports, as if it’s not supposed to be bone-chilling, nostril-freezing, teeth-chattering, mind-numbing cold in mid-January. If it took place in mid-July, I could see all the fuss.
I’ve also noticed how “weather talk” happens more in regions where the weather fluctuates from month to month, and season to season, like in our area.
In less variable weather climates, for example, in Southern California, there’s simply less to talk about unless it rains that rare day. Otherwise, it’s just another warm, sunny day. What the hell do they talk about in their driveways?
Ten years ago, I cited a study published in the American Meteorological Society Journals about “weather salience,” and a 29-item questionnaire designed to measure the ways in which weather is psychologically significant for people. It explored the
perceived importance of weather forecasts in our lives.
“Daily weather fluctuations can affect the emotions that people experience and people thus pay attention to the weather for this reason,” the researchers concluded.
In other words, weather matters whether we realize it or not.
For those of you old enough to be raised to watch evening news shows on television, every newscast wasn’t complete until we watched the three-minute weather segment near the end, just before sports — even if we already knew what our favorite meteorologist was going to tell us. For some reason, their familiar voice gave personal validation to a forecast we were already expecting. It’s like looking at an outdoor thermometer to confirm the temperature is below freezing.
“Early Wednesday morning will be the coldest this season,” an online news story stated Tuesday afternoon. “It could be the coldest temp in two years, with wind chills making it feel minus 10 to minus 20 degrees. With temperatures this cold, extra layers, hats and gloves will be a must if venturing outside.”
Really? We need to be told this? Who’s reading, toddlers?
During our latest minus-zero wind chill spell a couple weeks ago, I visit the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk, where a steady stream of motorists also visited to get a glimpse of the Great Lake in such wintry conditions. It was wickedly windy. And bitterly cold. I slipped on the ice, twice, trying to record a video of the scene. (It’s posted on my Facebook page.)
Like everyone else there, I was just curious. Unlike anyone else there, I was wearing shorts. I must have looked nuts. I’m used to it.
“Is it still cold out there?” a grocery store clerk asked me Monday.
Yep, I replied.
“Did it stop snowing?” Yep.
I pivoted our obligatory chitchat toward the unheralded heroism of her job. I’m continually impressed by retail workers who must deal with idiots like me every day to earn a paycheck. And I don’t hesitate telling them this while bagging my groceries or paying my bill. I feel the same way about sanitation workers who have to pick up other people’s garbage and recycling in this frigid weather. The grocery store cashier was genuinely appreciative not to talk about the weather, again. I think. I hope.
I talk about the weather only when I’m asked about it by other people. Despite its universal appeal to everyone on the planet, it feels like the last refuge for the conversationally challenged. I’d much rather be asked about my gusty views on breaking news, current events, national politics or sex.
Speaking of which, internet users search for “weather” more than they search for “sex,” according to Google Trends data. Our innate interest in sex and sex-related topics is a constant curiosity, but it plateaus on data mapping charts. Not so for our fascination with weather updates, which spikes depending on the forecasts. Coldest weather of the season? We just have to know what the exact temp will be.
The digital age is ideally suited for our mutual flirtation of “weather porn,” as I call it, allowing us to check updates any time of day, complete with visual props, detailed data and graphic photos. I’m just as guilty as everyone else.
The Weather Channel app on my smartphone gives me a certain kind of emotional reassurance that I can’t find anywhere else. Think about it. These forecasts correctly predict the future every day. Try doing this with any other topic, including your sex life.