Weathermen are meteorologists

Matt: Vocational titles such as astronomer and seismologist are relatively self-explanatory. But why are weatherpeople called meteorologists? I don't think world weather patterns are affected by near-Earth whizzing chunks of rock, are they? Is it simply a self-esteem booster for someone whose only chance of showing off to the public is the artful mastery of using a blue-screen weather map? — LemusB@aol.com

With perhaps one exception, no local TV weather-explainer would claim to be a certified meteorologist. Better career training probably is a year or two on the stand-up circuit. But just what do whizzing chunks have to do with snow? At the time of Aristotle, they were the same thing. The ancient Greek word “meteor” meant any atmospheric phenomenon — sun dogs, thunder, hurricanes — and any bright objects that streaked across the sky. In fact atmospheric events were classed into four groups: fiery meteors (lightning, comets), luminous meteors (rainbows, aurora borealis), aqueous meteors (rain, hail, dew), and aerial meteors (wind). Aristotle wrote the first “scientific” treatise on weather, Meteorologica, in 340 BC, and that pretty much ended any debate over what the discipline would be called. “Meteorology” to the ancient Greeks meant the study of all atmospheric stuff going on below the rarefied realm of the stars, a position TV weatherfolks probably recognize.