The Weather Report in the Midwest

... is never what one expects  because in the vast middle of the country weather sweeps in unpredictably from any direction; one day from Canada, the next from Mexico or Texas or Arizona or Colorado. Rarely from the east.Weather moves generally from west to east around the globe; something to do with the spin.

Meteorologists who can make it here can make it anywhere.  On top of the uncertainty of weather source, we are prone to floods, blizzards, hail, drought, and even tornados.  

Amazing that midwestern farmers are able to produce all the grain they do.  Farming is a chancy business in the best of circumstances but would you call the above "the best of circumstances?" Nor I.

I think farmers stay with it because it is a life of challenge lived in tandem with the natural world.  Our kind lived among wild plants and animals for most of our existence, and scientists now believe that in each of us is a deep longing for reconnection with the rest of the natural world. 

Most of us brainy apes are extremely detached from the real, i.e., natural world.  Often, our nearest approximation of it is a city park.  I imagine there are children who believe that all open spaces are covered with cropped green grass and that flowers bloom in cultivated beds everywhere.  

But, even in the densest, grayest city there is still a part of nature that is present to us always, and that is the sky above us.  It may be hazed over with smog and the stars may be made invisible by light pollution, but everyone can make connection with the heat of a sunny summer day, a blustering sleet storm, or a crisp day in Autumn when the air is cool and the sky is at its bluest.

Perhaps that is one reason that we are always interested in the weather report, accurate or not.  It is our remaining connection with the natural world.