And now for an updated weather forecast in the Sandhills: 10 percent chance of isolated showers, 20 percent chance of morning showers, 30 percent chance of afternoon showers, 40 percent chance of evening showers, and a 70 ­percent chance of scattered showers overall.

Equivocating “percentage” computer-driven monologues like these so thoroughly obfuscate the issue of weather that we never know what to resurrect — Noah’s ark, Tom’s raft, Grandma’s bumbershoot or Judy’s parasol.

As for the cacophonous thunder reverberating throughout the Sandhills this past month, it wasn’t boomers from Bragg. It was the darkening laughter of an omniscient capricious Mother Nature amused by the feeble attempts of mere ­mortals to accurately predict her stormy moods.

All joking aside, our oracles of local weather would best ­predict by swapping computers, maps, charts and matrices for almanacs, crystal balls, dart boards and ouija boards, and most reliable of all, Grandma’s rheumatism.

In spite of an irascible Mother Nature constantly proving local weather forecasts to be cloudy at best and hazy at worst, we drought-sated Sandhillers ­continue to anxiously check our rain gauges for the slightest drop of accuracy in last night’s forecast: 40 percent chance of rain — in your dreams.

Harvey Thibodeau

Pinehurst