(Over)cast your vote

“San Diego’s beaches were expecting over a million visitors for the July 4 holiday,” says San Diego Dept. of Weather chief Sunny Fair. “Thanks to the unseasonal cloud cover, we managed less than half of that.” Something had to be done.

Explains Fair, “Studies have shown that a solid gray sky created a “ceiling effect” in the brain. Rather than casting out into the endless blue, the mind registers a sense of enclosure, and tends to turn in on itself. The resulting introspection can lead people to ask disturbing questions such as, ‘Is it worth paying to live in San Diego when I can get the same cloudy skies for less somewhere else?’ The sadness that follows upon such a question is just the kind of thing that could be alleviated by a sunny day at the beach, but then, that’s exactly the problem. It’s a vicious circle, and the potential for disaster is clear.”

But while the Dept. of Weather’s primary goal is doing something about the weather, there are other steps that Fair and her friends can take in the meantime.

“Over the years,” she says, “we’ve come to understand the importance of naming when it comes to managing a problem. Take a condition like dyslexia. The name is just a mashup of words for “difficult” and “speech.” It doesn’t really speak to any kind of physiological or psychological problem. But once we’ve named it, the parents of children who have it tend to feel better. More optimistic. The name gives the problem a definite outline, so that it no longer looms like some seemingly endless stretch of marine layer cloud cover, making everyone feel helpless and sad. This has proven wonderfully effective on a small scale already: when people comment on May Gray or June Gloom, they almost always do it with a smile, however rueful. They’ve named the problem, and suddenly, the problem has limits: May and June.”

Unfortunately for Fair, this year’s cloud-cover campaign started early and seems to be staying late, and locals and tourists alike are grumbling.

“That’s why we’ve come up with some new names for people to try out. They’re still in Beta, so we definitely want to know people’s responses. Come to sdweather.gov and let us know what you think!”