I live in the Chicago area and golf at least twice a week. We get a paper delivered - the Chicago Tribune. On its weather page, it prints daily golfing and fishing indexes, purportedly describing how good or bad the weather is for those activities throughout the day.
Today is a high of 82, low of 58, sunny and warm, with wind 6-12 MPH. Whether you golf or not, I’d suggest that is pretty good weather for just about any outside activities - other than maybe running a marathon or something. The Trib lists it as solid 6 (out of 10) all day long. Oh - it drops to a 5 at 8 pm, likely reflecting that the sun sets at 6:30!
I actually sent them an email asking politely what criteria they consider, but received no response. I wondered what your thoughts were as to why the paper would exert any effort to publish something that is so nonsensical.
I wonder about that as well. In addition to the golfing and fishing indices, there’s also a boating index. They all seem to say the same thing. They should just combine them into one category, the “outdoor activities for old white guys” index.
I don’t have a factual answer but I’d expect a golf index to pull in wind speed as a factor; fishing might pull in cloudiness, if light attracts/repels fish; and boating might include seismologic activity and other information to inform about wave sizes.
Yeah - could work! Save some ink! They also have a UV index.
I’ve never checked how closely the golfing and fishing indices correlated. I’m not a fisherman, but I thought fishing was generally better in the morning and evening. Today they have fishing as a 1 at 8 am, going up to a 5-6 from 10 through 4 pm, dropping to 4 at 6 pm.
That’s why I asked them what factors they considered. Today’s wind is a light breeze. Not even a 1-club wind in golf terms (making you use 1 more or less club than usual.) As best I can tell, they seem to think overcast and in the lower 70s is optimal. Anyone in the Chicago area knows we’ve been enjoying a pretty spectacular string of weather the past couple of weeks. Especially for Chicago in late September. Highs mostly in the 70s, plenty of sun, down into the 60s at night. Gardeners would like some more rain. But whether you are golfing, biking, walking the dog, or just sitting in your yard, most people would think this is about as good as Chicago weather gets. Yet the Trib rates it as only 6 out of 10…
A couple of days ago the morning was rated as a rare 10 - when it was raining!
It has become a running joke with my wife and my golf buddies. I would think that at SOME point, someone associated with the paper would realize how nonsensical it is, and choose to not have pure nonsense in their paper. Of course, the quality of the Trib has dropped precipitously…
Particularly the poor Tribune, which has been gutted in recent years. It was sold to Alden Global Media in 2021, a company which has a reputation for mercilessly cutting staff and budgets in the name of profits; nearly all of their prominent columnists and writers took buyouts or were laid off.
Not all that long ago, the Tribune was owned by the same company which owned Chicago’s WGN television and radio stations; WGN’s meteorology staff, including the legendary Tom Skilling, provided the weather pages for the Tribune. It appears that the Trib now sources their weather content from Accuweather.
For fishing I thought the moon’s position also was a factor – I could definitely see that for the ocean (presumably tides affect fish), though I’m not sure about rivers and lakes.
I could see barometric pressure, humidity, and temperature affecting golf (how well the ball flies depends on air density). Wind is an obvious factor,
