Whenever I’m thinking about making time for a hike, the most visited websites on my computer become weather.com, accuweather.com, noaa.gov. and the local TV station known for good weather forecasting. I compare them all on a daily basis, hoping that one of the days when my calendar is clear will also turn out to be a good day for a walk in the woods. It’s really absurd how far out into the future meteorologists make predictions about the weather. I haven’t done any calculations, but I’ve looked at long-range forecasts enough to know that anything past three days is only a guess. Beyond four days is pretty useless. Even so, I can’t resist the temptation to look at what they’re saying about 10 and 15 days out. I recognize that a part of me wants to know the future – even while my head is telling me I can’t.
I laughed when I read an article this morning about the 2012 presidential election. The mid-terms aren’t over yet, but political commentators can’t help themselves. They are already calculating the probability of an Obama win and which states will decide his re-election bid. These prognostications are more meaningless than a 15-day weather forecast. But future weather and politics receive this speculation because there’s a part of all of us that really wants to know the future and is therefore always looking for signs.