Dead Possums and Meteorologists

Maybe it has something to do with the fact we have new owners (NBC Universal/Bain/Blackstone as of September 12), but for the first time in a month, we at The Weather Channel aren't dealing with a tropical storm or hurricane. It's been intellectually and emotionally exhausting wrestling with these tropical turkeys. They loop, stall, change course and generally behave quite badly. It's nature's way, I suppose, of thumbing its nose at us mortals, especially those of us who fancy ourselves meteorologists.

So leave it to me to choose a second profession that leaves me feeling like roadkill most of the time: a novelist. The writing part is fun, you understand, and dealing with a fictional hurricane, as I did in the book I just completed, is a heck of a lot easier than dealing with the likes of Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike. I know what my hurricane is going to do. I control it. I call the shots. I CAN DOMINATE THE WORLD. I CAN... Oh, sorry. Lost it for a moment.

Back to reality. It's having to find a literary agent -- someone who will champion the product of my blood, sweat and tears to a major publisher -- that reminds me I can't dominate the world, or much of anything else. That I'm not a heck of lot different from a flat possum on an Interstate.

I can't tell you the title of the book since this isn't really my blog, it's The Weather Channel's. And quite frankly, it doesn't make any difference. The reality of the publishing business is that even if I found an agent within the next few months, you probably wouldn't see the novel in bookstores for another two or three years. Yes, years. And that's assuming the agent is successful.

All considered, the likelihood of me making the PGA Tour may be somewhat higher. Where's my Big Bertha?

Anyhow, I can tell you a few things about the novel. It's not science fiction. It's loosely based on an incident that took place some time ago with a NOAA Hurricane Hunter. From there I let my imagination run amok. I worked with Steve Lyons to make sure I got the technical stuff right, and with Nicole Mitchell to make certain I portrayed the Air Force Hurricane Hunters correctly.

One of the challenges I faced was getting in enough technical detail to make the tale authentic, while at the same time not slowing down the forward momentum of the story.

I had to compromise some things. For instance, even though meteorologists and Hurricane Hunters talk in terms of "knots," I employed "mph" because it's more easily understood by the general public.

"Millibars" was another problem. Outside the meteorological community, most folks are more familiar with "inches" (of mercury) when referencing atmospheric pressure. But it would have been patently unrealistic to have my characters talking about "inches." So what to do? I chose not to explain millibars (mb) at all and instead just used the term, giving reference to its meaning within the context of the dialogue.

For instance, when the pressure in the novel's hurricane drops to 925 mb, one of the characters points out that's close to the strength of Andrew (922 mb) just before it pulverized South Florida in 1992. When the pressure plunges even further, to 875 mb, someone comments -- awestruck -- that that's lower than anything ever observed in the Atlantic Basin. (Hurricane Wilma, 2005, remains the real-life champion at 882 mb.)

At any rate, perhaps someday in the distant future you'll see a novel in a bookstore with my name plastered across the cover and you'll remember where you read about it first.

Or maybe not. Flat possum.