If you're planning a picnic Memorial Day, you might think about rescheduling. But July Fourth should be a bang-up day for anything you care to do outside; don't forget the sunscreen.
That's if the folks at AccuWeather have it right.
The meteorologists at the State College weather behemoth are daring to go where no credible forecasters have gone before – or at least none that we're aware of.
This week they began posting 90-day forecasts.
These aren't the government seasonal outlooks that stick to probabilities of below- or above-normal temperatures and precipitation for the entire period.
These are day-to-day, high and low, specific precipitation forecasts.
For example, the Memorial Day forecast calls for a high of 73 and low of 64, with 0.75 inches of rain.
July Fourth, however, is looking fabulous, with a high of 82, and plenty of sunshine.
You might recall that back in 2013 the meteorological community greeted AccuWeather's 45-day forecasts with howls of skepticism.
We attempted to greet that enterprise with an open mind, and after tracking the forecasts for 40 days, we concluded that the skepticism was well warranted.
After two weeks, we found, you were better off going with climatology, or basing a forecast on long-term average conditions.
Once again, we will evaluate the 90-day outlooks with an open mind, and we admit we haven't scored the 45-day forecasts lately.
The atmosphere is what the scientist call a chaotic nonlinear system. We'll see how this turns out, but in the battle between chaos and meteorologists, our money is on chaos.