Predicting Weather - It's A Science

Out here in Hootersville, we're naturally quite dependent on accurate weather predictions, what, with farming & ranchng .... and all the illegal mandated "Troll Road" construction that our governor is underhandedly forcing upon us after his 33% election win last year. Okay, that's another story, but the important issue is that we need to know ...
And as winter draws ever so slowly nearer, it reminds me of the story about a newly appointed tribal chief up in Idaho a few years back, who was likewise concerned with
informing his people of the possibility of inclement conditions. It goes like this :

The members came to the Shoshone Tribal Headquarters seeking advice, asking ..
"Chief, we come to you for your great knowledge of the Spirit Winds. Will we have a hard winter season ahead?"

The chief hadn't given it much consideration, but rather than appear ignorant of the subject, he decided to err on the side of caution, and answered, ..."Yes ! It truly IS going to be a VERY HARD winter, and you should all go out and gather wood as soon as possible!"

Well days went by with little appearance of weather changes, and so the chief began to wonder about his off the cuff prediction. So much so that he went into town to a phone booth whereupon he called the National Weather Service for a more "modernistic" opinion.
The meteorologist who fielded his call responded, "Well, at first we didn't expect much, but now it appears that we might have a very hard winter indeed". The chief thanked him and returned to the reservation.

He called all his people together and informed them once again:
"I sense a much harder winter now than I did before ... you should all go out and gather even MORE wood for the coming cold".
Several days later, the weather was actually warmer than before, so he drove in to make the call once more, explaining, "You told me that winter weather was coming, but it's still very warm. Are you STILL CERTAIN that a hard winter is coming ?"
"Yes, sir... We're more convinced than ever before. This could be the coldest winter we've had for many years in fact !" the agent informed him.

So once again the chief hurried back to the reservation to report the warning.
The people were already at council headquarters, seeking answers to his faulty predictions by the time he had returned. But he confidently & steadfastly repeated the same warning as before, and as the chief meteorologist had warned, "In fact this might be the worst winter in many years !"

The tribesmen were wary, but obediently returned to the forest to scout for even MORE firewood.
And by late November, after several cool fronts had passed, with still no sign of any threatening cold spell, the angry chief decided to go directly to the weather service headquarters itself, and asked what methods they were relying on for their faulty predictions.

The meteorologist took the chief past all the millions of dollars worth of sophisticated LandSat, Doppler, and other high-tech radar imaging equipment, then led him to a darkened room, where he revealed an entire wall of satellite images, taken, as he explained "around the perimeter of the Shoshone Indian reservation". He then further explained ... "As you can see, the Shoshone are gathering firewood this year like we've never seen before ... and that has always been the greatest measure we've ever had for predicting harsh winters ahead."