I am getting out of the cattle business for a new job

[plbcattle]

I am giving up my cows and hay business to become a weatherman. Where else can you be so danm wrong and still get a paycheck. I can't count the times that I was going to seed,cut, or fertilize only to listen to the weatherman and he be totally wrong I have put off cutting hay for a week because of 60-70% rain chances for over a week. Well we haven't had a drop and my hay mas matured more than I would have liked. It will put up a lot of bales per acre but not the quality I would have gotten a week ago. How with all these dang doplers and satelites can these guys be so wrong. Are they that bad at there job or are they blowing money on faulty equipment.

By the way i am going to lay down hay tomorrow and there is a 10-20% chance of rain. I bet a flood comes tomorrow. They predicted a ton of rain this last week and nothing. On a day when not much is predicted I will get it layed down and the bottom will fall out.

 

[Chuckie]

Are you going to wear a short skirt and priss across the screen if you get on the tube? Be sure to point at the right states when you call them out. I'll be watching!
Chuckie

 

[dun]

That's what I told my grandson to do. I told him it's the only job that you can be 90% wrong and still get 100% of your pay check

 

[fitz]

I am giving up my cows and hay business to become a weatherman. Where else can you be so danm wrong and still get a paycheck. I can't count the times that I was going to seed,cut, or fertilize only to listen to the weatherman and he be totally wrong I have put off cutting hay for a week because of 60-70% rain chances for over a week. Well we haven't had a drop and my hay mas matured more than I would have liked. It will put up a lot of bales per acre but not the quality I would have gotten a week ago. How with all these dang doplers and satelites can these guys be so wrong. Are they that bad at there job or are they blowing money on faulty equipment.

By the way i am going to lay down hay tomorrow and there is a 10-20% chance of rain. I bet a flood comes tomorrow. They predicted a ton of rain this last week and nothing. On a day when not much is predicted I will get it layed down and the bottom will fall out.

I know, days when I feel like I can't do anything right and the most minute project goes sour I have to remind myself that I could have been a weatherman. Anymore it seems the only thing they can come close to getting right is what happened yesterday.

 

[farmwife]

Our local weather guy is famous for phrases like:

Today there might be a light chance of a possibility of a shower

or

Later this evening expect a possible opportunity that there could be a thunderstorm

or

etc.

Talk about CYA!!!!!!!!!!

 

[dun]

Anymore it seems the only thing they can come close to getting right is what happened yesterday.

Ours are pretty good at sunrise and sunset, but even yesterdays weather isn;t all that right

 

[Hasbeen]

I tend to cut these guys some slack, especially in the summertime when these little pop-up showers occur. We are in a severe drought in my area and I've really been watching the weather closely. Have you all visited the Weatherchannel's website? They have a new interactive radar map that will allow you to zoom right in on a particular hayfield. Many times in the past weeks I watched as a small storm dumped .5 to 1.0 inch of rain less than a quarter mile from my fields. Seriously, how can you predict that it will rain on my neighbor's place but not mine?

 

[farmwife]

Oh, I completely understand that they can't pinpoint exactly where the drops will fall, but surely they can do better than they typically do around here.

Case in point, a couple of years ago I was coming home from town. It started raining so hard that I had to pull over and wait it out and low and behold the weather came on the radio "Tonight there's a chance of a possible shower (in our neck of the woods that means a pretty good rain, not a frog choker). My goodness . . .

 

[FarmGirl10]

One day, it was really putting it down at our farm and i turned on the weather and the weatherman was like there's no chance of rain for the last of the night and the radar is clear. It drove me crazy.

 

[Dave]

Our TV guys get it right most of the time. But they are predicting for the whole western half of the state. So we are talking some big differences. The local radio guys one the other hand couldn't predict a snowflake in a blizzard.
One day back when I was falling timber we were driving to work in the morning listening to the weather. The guy said winds were light and variable to 5 mph. About that time we go past a car dealership that has a huge flag, about 30 by 50. That flag was stuck straight out like it was starched. Someone asked "whose basement is he broadcasting from?"

 

[jw]

I told him it's the only job that you can be 90% wrong and still get 100% of your pay check

How about politician??

 

[dun]

I told him it's the only job that you can be 90% wrong and still get 100% of your pay check

How about politician??

Wrong not crooked

 

[AngusLimoX]

The thing I don't like is nowadays the weather channels have ratings that they are concerned about. Do you get good ratings by blandly reporting actual observations and honest forecasts, or do you get them by "beefing up" the information.

Put "possibility of tornadoes and large hail " in there with what used to be a simple thunderstorm and boost those ratings!
Before a long weekend start saying how nice it looks like it may be, but stay tuned, there is a fast moving low front coming in.( They darn well know it's gonna rain but don't want to pee off viewers and dump those ratings ).

I don't know how many aviators are out there but if you go right to flight planning and navigation sites you get the stuff pilots assess before flying. And as far as regional weather ( I am in a lake effect area ) - it is a matter of experience and paying attention, and just doing the best you can.

plb - when the hay is approaching ready, anything less than a 40% chance of rain and I am cutting, as long as the other drying conditions are there ( a whole other topic ).

ALX

 

[HerefordSire]

I have it all figured out. You have to get mother nature in a bind. It is very simple if you think about it. I planned a way I would never be disappointed. One side was hay production and the other was corn and purple hull peas. The corn and peas needed rain so I knew all I had to do is start mowing grass for hay. If it rained while I was haying, then I knew I was going to have a bumper crop of corn and peas and my hay got wet and lost a few nutrients but I would get it baled. If it didn't rain, I would have a nice mature hay crop with plenty of nutrients and a withering corn and pea crop that could still survive.

 

[Sir Loin]

I’m still trying to figure out where the wind chill factor goes in the summer and where the heat index goes during the winter.
I think it would be better if they gave us the wind chill factor in the summer and the heat index in the winter. :roll:

SL

 

[dun]

I’m still trying to figure out where the wind chill factor goes in the summer and where the heat index goes during the winter.
I think it would be better if they gave us the wind chill factor in the summer and the heat index in the winter. :roll:

SL

There are sites on the web you can put in the figures and get the numbers calculated. Just use the one that is opposite for the time of year.

 

[bncsimps]

Amen to that! Haven't received any substantial rain in my little town in northern AL until we decided to get into the hay fields. It rained the first day the cutting started; and have been raining just enough to hamper progress every since. GO FIGURE.

 

[spinandslide]

Sure as hell right! The beginning of every week, the weatherman says we have no chance of rain..then the chances start to creep in..last week, they said this week was supossed to be DRY..now we've got creeks 10 feet over flood stage and the Wichita River coming up over it's bridge! WTF???

Id like to get my hay cut this century!

 

[Jogeephus]

I was once told by a weatherman that when they say 60 % chance of rain that just means its going to rain and 60% of the state is going to get it.

It also means, 40 days out of 100 you are going to get zilch.

To me, the tough call in cutting hay, is when there is a 60% chance of isolated showers. This means 40 out of 100 you will not see any showers that day. However, if its one of the 60 then there may be showers in the county but odds are you will not get one - unless of course you cut hay.

 

[Lammie]

The thing I don't like is nowadays the weather channels have ratings that they are concerned about. Do you get good ratings by blandly reporting actual observations and honest forecasts, or do you get them by "beefing up" the information.

Put "possibility of tornadoes and large hail " in there with what used to be a simple thunderstorm and boost those ratings!
Before a long weekend start saying how nice it looks like it may be, but stay tuned, there is a fast moving low front coming in.( They darn well know it's gonna rain but don't want to pee off viewers and dump those ratings ).

I don't know how many aviators are out there but if you go right to flight planning and navigation sites you get the stuff pilots assess before flying. And as far as regional weather ( I am in a lake effect area ) - it is a matter of experience and paying attention, and just doing the best you can.

plb - when the hay is approaching ready, anything less than a 40% chance of rain and I am cutting, as long as the other drying conditions are there ( a whole other topic ).

ALX

I hear you. One station in Fort Worth has a Humvee that they drive around "reporting" weather every time it rains. Some reporter standing outside in the rain - big deal. That isn't weather. Now if you are in a drought and it rains, that's a big deal to you, but every time it rains to have some guy run out in it in the Hummer telling us to be careful of the "hazardous" conditions, is really overkill. I hate it that the daily weather forecast has become "news", and part of the ratings monster.