Weather Reports

I had a great day at the Ballard Farmers' Market yesterday. It was especially good because I'd expected it to be slow after checking the weather reports.

As someone whose livelihood often depends on the weather, I check local weather reports obsessively. First I check weather.com, which gives me a long range view of the upcoming week. Then I look at the KIRO web page, which tends to be somewhat more accurate in the short term. That's not surprising in light of the fact that they're focused on weather specifically for this area, rather than all over the world. Lastly, I look at the Cliff Mass weather blog, which has plenty of fascinating information, especially about how difficult it is to predict the weather in this area, though ironically he happens to be wrong a lot more often than the other, more imprecise forecasts.

When the weather reports call for sunny days I know to bring plenty of lemonade, and more food in general, because there will be more people at the markets. When the predictions call for rain I bring somewhat less product.

Yesterday was an interesting case because all of the forecasts called for rain and yet it was a reasonably nice day. I think some of the best market days happen under those circumstances. My theory is that people don't make plans for outdoor day trips because of the forecasts, but when the weather turns out to be okay they still want to be outside, so many of them go to the market.

It may be a crackpot theory, or there may be some truth to it. In either case, it's my little way of trying to assert some measure of control over something that I know is actually completely out of my control.