I don't really know when my fascination with the weather began, though I suspect it must have had something to do with repeated viewings of the Wizard of Oz when I was young. In the old days before videos, it was shown once a year on network TV, usually around Easter. What child has not marveled at the majestic Twister sweeping down on Dorothy and Auntie Em and the whole Gale (get it?) family? Certainly I did.

I remember talking about this with Linda and with my friend Jim as an adult, both of whom seemed to have escaped whatever obsession that Twister inspired. (They had their own issues with the movie, though. Linda, until she was well into her 30s never knew that most of it is in color because Nancy, her mother, didn't believe in color TV. As for Jim, he was always forced to go to bed by his parents right after the Wizard turned everyone away after their first audience with him. ``I always thought that stupid movie had no sense of closure,'' Jim recalls.)

As I got older, my fascination grew into something more akin to an obsession. Whenever snow fell in Raleigh _ a rarity in its own right _ I always flipped through the TV channels watching for the weather man (they were all men then) who would predict the most dire snowfall amounts. It was the same with the summertime thunderstorms, which blew through the state in the heavy heat of August, bringing with them majestic thunderheads and occasional tornado watches broadcast on my little black transistor radio. There was no Weather Channel then, and the closest the local cable channel could come to providing current conditions was a bank of dials mounted on a wall. Each dial showed something: the temperature, humidity, wind speed and barometric pressure, and a lone camera slowly panned back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I think there was clock, too, so you'd know exactly how long you'd been staring at the screen, waiting for something to happen.

Only after I moved to Rhode Island, and then only after the Weather Channel appeared in the late 1980s, did I become known among friends as the weather guru. Jim, for example, would always call before heading out sailing to ask about the prospect for afternoon storms on Narragansett Bay, asking whether this was, ``the back of the front or the front of the back.'' I think he was amused by my interest, and he noted that that I was always complaining that it was too cold in the winter and too humid during the summer. ``Mingis,'' he told many times, ``there are only two days in the entire year that are perfect for you.''

I was delighted, of course, by the Weather Channel, and especially by the prospect of five-day forecasts, which no one seemed to believe but me. ``Better cut that grass today,'' I'd darkly warn neighbors. ``Going to pour day after tomorrow.'' ``I'm heading for the store for milk and bread,'' I'd say. ``Need anything? Supposed to get 10 inches tonight and more snow tomorrow.'' Still, my old neighborhood chum Connie, in North Carolina, and I gleefully talked about those long-range forecasts and how we could sit for hours late at night watching the national radar, trying to best the meteorologists' (when did they get such fancy names?) predictions. Usually, we were all wrong.

As the years went by, I found myself watching more, and being listened to less -- although there were occasional triumphant moments. I remember back in 1991, when I was out on Cape Cod with Linda and Marvin, staying at Nancy's almost-seaside home, watching the Weather Channel on her 12-inch black and white TV. Hurricane Bob was then a far off but gathering storm. Everyone else had gathered around the table to talk about Iraq. I was watching for Bob, and was the first to alert everyone when the hurricane watch went up. ``Coming right for us,'' I rushed in to announce. ``Nancy, you might want to go stay with the Jaxtheimers. Linda, did you get those storm windows replaced? Marvin, better check on the Children's Museum. Might lose power when this thing blows in.'' Later that day, I coolly surveyed the gray ocean, looking for any breeze or wave that might indicate this was the big one. The ocean was flat and gray, and I was dismissed as an alarmist.

The next day, I remember, was the same day Mikhail Gorbachev was ousted in a coup in the Soviet Union. Linda headed for her job at Fall River, and Marvin headed out to the Children's Museum in nearby Massachusetts -- very close to the coast -- and I headed for the newspaper. My assignment: I would be stationed inside the Providence hurricane barrier for the duration of the storm, a duty I neglected to mention to Mom when she called to complain that I shouldn't have to work when a hurricane was coming. ``Mama, it's what newspapers do,'' I told her. At 10 a.m., they were going to close the bridges between here and Fall River, and I called Marvin and told him if he didn't believe me, he could just stay at the museum in the dark. ``You won't be able to get back,'' I said. He returned to Providence, bought a bottle of ``Eye of the Storm'' blush wine and settled in for the day.

Bob, as it turned out, veered to the east at the last minute, pounding the Cape. Most of the huge oaks lining the street on which Nancy lives, were ripped down by the winds, though Nancy and her home were untouched. True New Englander that she is, she had refused to evacuate, even when Linda had the local fire chief call and warn her mother to move inland, away from the water. I was glad she was spared, and took smug satisfaction in knowing that, this time at least, I'd been right about a storm.

In the years since, I have learned to tone down my warnings, only volunteering weather-related information when asked, lest I gain a reputation. I may be too late. At work, a mid-level editor has already told me that if he ever makes publisher, he's going to send me immediately to meteorology school and will designate me the weather reporter therever after. And co-workers seem to sidle up regularly to ask about snowstorms, or in the summer, to inquire as to how long this damn heat wave is going to last. I quickly check the internet weather sites I have bookmarked on my computer and come up with a consensus forecast. As part of the routine, I always warn my friend Jeanne that her town in particular is going to be wiped out.

I find now that I need the Weather Channel less and less, turning more often to the internet and my little portable computer for forecasts _ a habit that drove Craig to distraction. (Though truth be told, he seemed to tune in more and more to the weather himself.) If the Weather Channel was a giant leap forward from those wall-mounted dials, then the internet and the weather information available on it is another leap beyond anything on TV. I can study the maps, the data, the far-flung reports from across the country and come up with my own prognostications. But what fascinates me still is the fact that for all my efforts, the weather seems to do as it pleases, continually foiling my attempts to act as town-crier. Invariably when I predict the sky is falling, it is only a little rain, or perhaps a bit of mushy winter slush.

When I think now about what Jim said, that I only really was happy on two days a year, I realize he was wrong. I'm happy more days than not, for each day brings with it a change, a new forecast to ponder, a new storm to worry about. I watch the clouds roll in or out, look for the sun to rise over the neighborhood or set over the water. I am not always right in my predictions -- who is? -- but I am always watching. And therein lies the fun.