Poor Will's Almanack: November 19 - 25, 2019

My interest in the weather began in 1972 with the gift of a barometer. My wife, Jeanie, gave the instrument to me when I was succumbing to the stress of school in Knoxville, Tennessee, and it became not only an escape from intense academic work, but the first step on the road to a different kind of awareness about the world. From the start, I was never content just to watch the barometric needle. I was fascinated by the alchemy of my charts and graphs that turned rain and Sun into visible patterns, symbols like notes on a sheet of music. From my graphs of barometric pressure, I saw that major high-pressure systems move across the United States an average of once every five to six days, and approximately 80 significant highs cross the Mississippi River in a year. A short apprenticeship told me when important changes would occur and what kind of weather would take place on most any day. The pulse of the world was steadier than I had ever imagined. The more I learned about the natural