Archive note: This is a satirical weather column from October 2026, not a current forecast.
Earl “Radar” Mullins has purchased bread, milk, and a snow shovel after concluding that a week capable of producing an 85-degree afternoon was capable of just about anything.
His confidence in the forecast remained at 37 percent. His confidence that the store would be out of bread if he waited was substantially higher.
“I can be wrong about the weather,” Earl explained. “I don’t intend to be wrong about toast.”
The trouble began when Earl checked three weather apps and received three different answers. He considered averaging them, but said the resulting forecast would require rain falling sideways through a partly cloudy frost.
He went outside instead.
A neighbor was mowing. Another neighbor was stacking firewood. Earl took this as independent confirmation of both summer and winter.
Preparations proceed in every direction
Inside the house, Earl placed a hoodie beside the door, located his raincoat, and moved the snow shovel where he could reach it without stepping over the box fan.
His wife asked whether he could put at least one of those things away.
“Which forecast do you want to commit to?” he asked.
The family’s emergency supplies now included soup, sunscreen, a windshield scraper, and charcoal. Earl described this as a balanced response to conditions.
A subsequent check of the radar produced no immediate answers, although Earl reported that the animation looked convincing.
By evening, he had revised his advice to residents: dress for the weather currently happening, bring something for the weather that might happen, and avoid congratulating yourself until you get home.
Asked whether his headline promised snow, Earl objected.
“It has a question in my voice,” he said.
The newsroom advised him that readers could not hear his voice.
Earl purchased another loaf.
The Holler Herald — West Virginia’s Least Reliable News Source.
