Though it gets easier every year to predict the weather, it's getting harder to justify it. Parts of the United States had record heat just a few weeks ago during the winter, and yet it's snowing in areas of Michigan now that it's spring. That's inexcusable.

Forecasters can describe these conditions but not provide any moral framework for them, further revealing the liberal media bias. Experts will say merely that snow this time of year is “not unusual,” and that everyone should look the other way while the experts board up their houses and horde canned water.

Adding to the stress, we could be headed toward some especially obnoxious heat this year. The southern hemisphere has already experienced the summer that's headed our way, and the season brought them the collapse of a major piece of Antarctica – further proof, according to the conservative media bias, that global warming is a myth.

We need to understand the weather a lot better than we do, so that we can more effectively demand that it change. Let's review a few of the basics:

How do we predict the weather?

Meteorologists study data from weather balloons, which mark wind currents, measure humidity and, when disguised as alien space craft, kidnap farmers and dismember cows. With the information gathered here and from satellites, experts build charts of cold and warm fronts. These fronts move in a consistent direction, unless one too many butterflies flaps its wings in South Dakota, in which case the entire system loses balance and shifts 20 miles inland, killing everyone.

But some parts of the country are easier to predict than others. Here's a recent “USA Today” forecast for Seattle, Wash.:

Monday, considerable cloudiness, high of 52, low of 36.
Tuesday, partly cloudy, 52/35.
Wednesday, partly cloudy, 56/39.
Thursday, partly cloudy, 58/40.

Quick quiz: Is that last week's prediction for Seattle, this week's prediction for Seattle, or something that someone wrote in a patch of cement 17 years ago and that has been more or less accurate for Seattle ever since?

What are some world records involving weather?

At the Soviet Antarctica station of Vostok, in July 21, 1983, a record low was reached with -129 degrees Fahrenheit. On Fox TV, a record low was reached on March 3, 2002, with “Celebrity Boxing.”

The wettest spot in the world is Mount Waialeale, Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, with an average annual rainfall of 460 inches. The second wettest spot is going to be wherever Robert Blake is sitting when those stuntmen testify.

What hurricane names haven't been used yet?

All names have been used by now except Gilligan, Pebbles and Sniffy.

By the way, where do tides come from?

Scientists say they result from the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon. But if so, why don't glasses of water have tides as well? In fact, since the human body is mostly water, how come we don't slop over the sides the way the ocean does? The answer is that we do slop over, and that in fact this usually occurs when we see the moon. And we've been drinking.

But all this sun and moon stuff sounds mostly like a lot of hippy talk. More likely, the truth about tides lies in the local explanations that each region of the United States develops for itself.

At low tide along the Atlantic seaboard, for example, we believe the ocean is trying to get away from us because we're a bunch of pale, pudgy idiots running around in Speedo briefs.

In California, the ocean pulls away from the shore because it doesn't think the shore can help sell the ocean's script for “Malcolm in the Middle.”

In Washington, D.C., the reasons for the tides are not being released at this time, but all oceanic movement are generally blamed on the previous administration.

So given all this, what's the coming summer going to be like?

If you're in Seattle, it's going to be partly cloudy.