Weather Forecasting

 

天气预报

It is the material for the conversation of board chairman and bored cleaning woman,of young and old, of the bright, the dull, the rich and the poor.

天气是董事会主席和无聊的清洁女佣之间闲聊的话题，也是年轻人和老人，聪明人和笨蛋，穷人和富人的谈资。

As if this basic coin of conversation needed to be gilded,

这个基本的聊天话题仿佛需要点亮色，

the average American constantly reads about the weather in his newspapers and magazines,listens to regular forecasts of it on the radio and watches while some TV prophet milks it for cuteness on the evening news.

于是普通美国人一直在报刊上阅读有关天气的消息，用收音机收听定期的天气预报，或在电视晚间新闻观看天气预报，而一些天气预报员利用这个节目买弄聪明伶俐。

Since the weather is to man what the waters are to fish,his preoccupation with it serves a unique purpose,constituting a social phenomenon all its own.

由于天气对人来说就想水对鱼儿一样重要，人们对天气的痴迷起到了独特的影响，造就了一种独有的社会现象。

Far from arising merely to pass the time or bridge a silence,"weathertalk," as it might be called, is a sort of code by which people confirm and salute the sense of community they discover in the face of the weather's implacable influence.

所谓的“谈论天气”，远不只是为消磨时间或打破沉默而开始的话题，而是一种代码，通过这个代码人们确认并迎接社区归属感，而人们在面临天气难以撼动的影响时发现了这种归属感。

Inspired by exceptional weather,otherwise immutable strangers suddenly find themselves in communion.

受反常天气的刺激，在其他情况下毫不相干的陌路人，也会突然感到彼此心灵交汇。

As victims, people hate to cancel a picnic on account of rain,and yet they often cheer when the weather brings human activity to an abrupt stop.

作为天气的受害者，人们讨厌因为下雨而取消一次野餐活动，然而，他们还是常常会在天气使日常活动突然停止时欢呼雀跃。

Most feel that the weather indeed affects their moods.

大多数人觉得，天气的确会影响心情。

If man sees the weather differently according to his circumstance,healthy fear works at the hub of his obsession with it.

如果人们根据他们心情的变化而以不同的方式看待天气，健康的恐惧直接引起了他对天气的痴迷。

Through human history,weather has altered the march of events and caused some mighty cataclysms.

纵观人类历史，天气改变了历史的进程，并导致了一些历史剧变。

Every year brings fresh reminders of the weather's power over human life and events in the form of horrifying tornadoes,hurricanes and floods.

每一年，各种可怕的龙卷风，飓风和洪水都在时刻提醒人们，天气对人类的生活和活动具有巨大的影响力。

No wonder, then,that man's great dream has been some day to control the weather.

因此，控制天气在未来成了人类最大的梦想也就不足为奇了。

With computers on tap and electronic eyes in the sky,modern man has thus come far in dealing with the weather,alternately his enemy and benefactor,

现代人身边有电脑，天上有电子眼，在应对天气方面已取得了长足的进步—天气一会儿是人类的敌人，一会儿是恩人；

yet man's difficulty today is not too far removed from that of his remote ancestors.

但人类目前面临的困难与遥远的祖先相比却没有少到哪里去。

For all the advances of scientific forecasting,in spite of the thousands of daily bulletins and advisories that get flashed about,the weather is still ultimately unstable and unpredictable.

尽管人类在科学预报方面取得了进步，每天有数以千计滚动播出的天气状况报告，但天气终究还是变幻无常，难以预测。

Man's dream of controlling it is still just that-a dream.

人类控制天气的梦想仍然只是—一个梦想。

The very idea of control, in fact,raises enormous and troublesome questions.

而事实上，控制天气这个想法本身就提出了十分棘手的问题。

The vision of scheduled weather also raises ambiguous feelings among the world's billions of weather fans and poses at least one irresistible question:

全世界几十亿天气迷对按日程排定天气的预想拿捏不定，同时这一设想至少提出了一个无法回避的问题:

If weather were as predictable as holidays and eclipses,what in the world would everyone talk about?

如果天气像节日假期和日蚀，月蚀一样可以预知，那么我们还能聊点什么呢？