FARGO — There is an old English farmer’s proverb that says, “No debt is so surely paid as from wet to dry, and from dry to wet.” Truer words were never spoken. We cannot rely on the weather to be average, typical, or pleasant. However, the proverb is not meant to imply that all weather fluctuations “even out” over time.
We should not expect a dry period to be balanced by an equally long wet period, nor should we expect a cold period to be balanced by an equally long warm period. Weather is not linear; it does not converge to an average. Of course, over decades, the deviations in average calculations change only by relatively small amounts, so a careful weather observer will notice shifts from dry to wet and from cold to warm and back again. Over time, however, these deviations do not converge to an average.
John Wheeler is chief meteorologist at WDAY, a position he has held since May 1985. Wheeler grew up in the South in Louisiana and Alabama and says his family’s move to the Midwest was important in developing his fascination with weather and climate. Wheeler lived in Wisconsin and Iowa as a teenager. He attended Iowa State University and earned his bachelor’s degree in meteorology in 1984. Wheeler worked at WOI-TV in central Iowa for about a year before moving to Fargo and WDAY.
