By Jake Vest

While DOGE is firing government employees, I have a few targets of opportunity to recommend. Get rid of all the National Weather Service people south of Baltimore, except one or two part-timers to be called in when the European Model says a hurricane is coming. 

Except for hurricanes, nothing else changes, so who needs them? A hurricane is a storm about the size of Georgia, so detection wouldn’t be all that difficult. Even Europe could handle it.   

The next one to go is whoever it is who gets up every morning and issues a Heat Advisory. To Florida. In August. Seriously? He, she, or they should be reassigned to pick up litter on the interstate. 

Next up for the axe, the person or people who send the little weather messages that show up on the lower left-hand corner of my computer. “Rain in 3.5 hours” and “rainy days ahead” have been popping up regularly for the last 13 days and we have not had a drop at my house. 

A few days ago I spent three hours digging in my crispy lawn to repair some bare spots. I had a golf towel under my hat, like one of those French soldiers in “Beau Geste,” and a wet towel around my neck and still nearly roasted in merciless sunshine. When I went inside to recuperate and play Internet Poker, the computer was saying “rain ending soon.” 

The people responsible for guessing when it is going to rain should be reassigned to reset sprinkler heads and install sod for senior citizens.  

Those are the reassignments. There is another group that ought to not only be summarily dismissed but possibly prosecuted. That would be the people behind the Heat Index.  

Sorry to be vindictive, but when I come in from yard work or a hard day on the golf course, the last thing I need to see is Tom Terry in a long-sleeved shirt and necktie telling me how hot it felt out there. How would he know? 

“It’s 94 but it feels like 103!” is more like a taunt than any usable information. 

I realize those meteorological fraternity brothers do not work for the government, but they are getting their information from somewhere. The government is either feeding it to them or approving of it.  Either way, it ought to be shut down.  

Nobody would miss anything. For a small fee, I would be happy to get up every morning and issue a heat advisory. At no extra charge, I could come back a little later in the day and tell you how hot it feels out there and make a guess at whether or not it is going to rain. 

I know I could do it. The only thing Tom Terry has that I don’t is a big weather map that shows red blotches where it is already raining. They get redder the harder it rains. If a blotch gets red enough, they take Jeopardy! off the air and he comes on and points at his map and says things like, “as you can see, the heart of this disturbance is over Lockhart!” 

I think that means it is raining, and I bet everybody in Lockhart knew about it before Tom. I can’t see how this did them any good, and as far as I’m concerned, rain that is not falling on you is none of your business. 

I could be at least that useful, not any more wrong than the pros usually are, and, as an extra bonus, less irritating. I wouldn’t butt into Jeopardy!