I wish I had that kind of job security

Then, just after he rang it up into the computer, I would hand him the change part of the total and ask him to take it.

Usually, the ensuing chaos would be the sort of thing that would go viral on YouTube today, if I had recorded it.

I fear the same thing would happen to many of today’s newest generation of weather forecasters if they were forced to work without their computer models and other bells and whistles that have become standard operating equipment today. It’s because while they sort of understand in general terms how weather is made, they don’t fully understand the science behind it.

And that’s dangerous, my friends.

I know a number of people who are engaged in the profession of meteorology, and I’m pretty sure every one of them has heard the following uttered by me at least once this winter:

If I was as wrong as our local meteorologists, and as often, I would be out of a job.

I really envy “weather guys.” They can be wrong more often than they’re right and with a straight face, they’ll tell you they’re the “most accurate” forecasters out there. But the even bigger problem is that so many of us out here believe what they’re selling.

It’s easy to get bent out of shape when they completely blow it and “miss” the really bad weather headed our way — as they did just a few weeks ago. But how many of you think about it when they say it’s going to be “partly cloudy and 42,” only to have it end up being “sunny and 54,” like last Thursday?

That’s a deviation of more than 25 percent from the forecast, which is a really technical way of saying the weather guys were dead wrong — again.

One of the meteorologists I know writes a blog about his profession geared toward college meteorology students. Last year, after attending the American Meteorological Society’s annual convention, he wrote that private forecasting companies were no longer looking for “operational meteorologists,” the industry jargon for weather forecasters.