It sure is a rough time to be a weather forecaster. They predict rain for a day coming up, then suddenly change the prediction the day before to partly cloudy, then it actually rains. Or else it turns out to be clear and sunny. Or hail. Or what have you.

So no, we won’t be bashing meteorologists here. They have it rough as it is. The Upper Midwest is no easy place to predict the weather. If you want accurate forecasts move to the Southwest.

Here’s the forecast there: Sunny. Sunny. Sunny. Sunny. Sunny. Mostly sunny. Sunny. Except for two weeks of downpours, it’s all sun.

Arizona conversation:

Woman: &8220;Did you see that cloud in the sky yesterday?&8221;

Man: &8220;A cloud? What’s that?&8221;

Minnesota conversation:

Woman: &8220;Did you see that funnel cloud in the sky yesterday?&8221;

Man: &8220;Which one?&8221;

Yes, Minnesotans love to talk about the weather.

We’d like to share with you a new book, written by University of Minnesota climatologist and meteorologist Mark Seeley. It’s called &8220;Minnesota Weather Almanac.&8221;

There’s an interesting story Seeley tells about when he moved from Texas in 1978. He had just been hired to work for the University of Minnesota’s Department of Soil, Water and Climate.

It had been a beautiful drive north. But then Seeley crossed the Minnesota-Iowa border and suddenly a snowstorm struck. He creeped to the next town and was snowed in for two days in our beautiful Albert Lea. That’s how the weather of Minnesota greeted him.

His book tracks the crazy weather occurrences of our history, from the Red River floods of 1997 to the Armistice Day blizzard of 1940 and from the Halloween blizzard of 1991 to the 1867 Chippewa River surge. One tales tells of a tornado that sucked up the Mississippi River like a straw near Sauk Rapids in 1886. And did you know the technical term for snow blindness is niphablepsia?

Happy reading.