The Whether here is just awful

What IS it with the weather ? More particularly, weather forecasters.

I choose to read my weather from the U.S Government's own web site which is, I like to tell myself, the thinking man's weather site. No ads for allergy medication, timeshares or mortgage refinancing. No pop ups for Pest Control, or Dell Computer. Not too much in the way of reliable weather forecasting, either.

For the last 5 days or so, we've had a 60% chance of 'severe thunderstorms' featuring 'heavy rain, hail and damaging winds'. It has rained barely more than a drop. I'd like to know the psuedo scientific means behind the '60%'. Do they think it's slightly better than 50/50, so 60 is about right. Are there dice involved ? A magic 8 ball ?

I think it's worse when it's shitty hot with no end in sight. At this point, you want the weather people to just MAKE it get cooler. Don't they have some giant satellite thingy that can do that ? What do we spend all of our tax dollars on, anyway ?

But still, you'd think with their orbiting weather platforms, doppler radar, computer simulations, global weather models etc. etc. that they could predict, with somewhat more than 60% certainty that it will rain TODAY. Not tomorrow, or next week, just today. That's all I ask. Don't give me false hope.

Meanwhile, we suffer in misery and I await the approach of a particularly hazardous storm from the east. I'm riding the odds, though.

I left my car windows open.