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Fogging Up Those Old-Time Forecasts
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Prognosticators contend that the government's not looking in the right places.
Some of them say the secrets of the weather can be traced in cycles of sunspots -- dark spots on the sun related to changes in magnetic activity. The idea is that shifts in the sun's energy eventually effect the climate on Earth. Another school studies the movements of the tides, believing that they signal changes in the weather in roughly 18-year cycles.
Others look closer to home.
"This year, I find . . . the squirrels are not shaking the nuts out of the trees," said Gerald S. Lestz, 94, editor of Baer's Agricultural Almanac & Gardener's Guide in Lancaster, Pa.
Lestz said he also noticed that wasps were building their nests relatively close to the ground, perhaps indicating that snow would not pile up too high.
This winter "looks a little on the mild side," he said.
Almanac staff members say their predictions are trusted by the public, often consulted by brides-to-be, members of the clergy, horse racing promoters and other people who want to know if the rain will fall on a special day that might be months or years off.
They contend that they're correct more often than not.
In Hagerstown, the weather isn't even the most astounding thing the $3.50 almanac predicts: it boasts a formula to identify the sex of an unborn child, using the birthday and Zodiac sign of an older sibling.
"I've never, ever had anybody tell me I was wrong" about that, said Jerry Spessard, almanac's business manager. About half of the booklet's customers, he said, live in the Washington area.
But for prognosticators, climate change is a problem on a much bigger scale. It threatens the very bedrock of their craft -- the idea that nature is repeating itself.
Scientists around the world have concluded that average temperatures could rise 3 degrees or more by 2100, as mounting levels of carbon dioxide and pollutants trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere. That change is expected to raise sea levels, alter long-established weather patterns and affect plant and animal life.
