Search for the Missing “Relative”

I have noticed the trend these days is to make unnecessary, inconvenient changes to things that have worked from their conception. This more often than not, results in inferior products after the change. The ubiquitous trendy phrase used these days for any product  is “New and “Improved”. In the majority of cases I’ve found is that it may be new, but certainly not “improved”. To me it results in, “One step forward; two steps backward”.

I could give a long list of aggravating examples; however, in the pursuance of brevity, I will give an example of the first aggravation I observed early this morning.

All the weather forecasters used to give the relative humidity. That was something that I could always relate. A low relative humidity means it would be comfortable to go outside on a hot day. A high relative humidity means that it becomes more “sticky” on a hot humid day, thus resulting in profuse perspiring.

These days, for some unknown reason, the weather forecasters have replaced relative humidity with the “dew point”.  I still cannot relate to that in a pragmatic and practical way. The official meteorological definition of “dew point” is, “The atmospheric temperature (varying according to pressure and humidity) below which water droplets begin to condense and dew can form.” To me this means nothing. I simply cannot empirically relate to that! That is not germane as to how “sticky” it will be on a hot humid August Dog Day afternoon.

Now, I have to go to the NWS web site that still lists “relative humidity” so I know what kind of a day it will be as to comfort level. I have no idea as to why they have omitted the humidity. Given my wary nature, I conger up some insidious clandestine government conspiracy to confuse us and limit summer outdoor activates. You never know these days.

I shall not even attempt to broach the subject of “Heat Index”, which is yet another pedantic esoteric term to further cause confusion! Then there are the phony “old school” radar sweep arms when they show the Doppler radar screens. I do not believe there are radar sweep arms in Doppler. Very distracting indeed! Then there’s the….. Oh, never mind, I’m starting to get irked. Bring back the old ways that worked fine.

My plea: Come on T.V. weathermen, break free of the trendy herd mentality and think for your selves. Bring back relative humidity forecasts for those of us Baby Boomers!!!

///Mike\\\