By David L. Langford, Associated Press.

Television forecasters make a good living talking about the weather, but when Mother Nature throws a curveball, they duck for cover.
Conversations with several veteran procrastinators across the country this week turned up stories of them being whacked by old ladies with umbreallas, accosted by drunks in bars, pelted with snowballs and galoshes, threatened with death, and accused of trying to play God.
"I had one guy call and tell me that if it snowed over Christmas, I wouldn't live to see New Year's," said Bob Gregory, who has been the forecaster at WTHR-TV in Indianapolis for nine years.
Most of the forecasters claimed they are accurate 80 percent to 90 percent of the time on one-day forecasts, but longer range predictions get tricky. And most conceded they are simply reporting information supplied by computers and anonymous meteorologists from the National Weather Service or a private agency.
But it's the face on the television that people go after.
Tom Bonner, 35, who has been with KARK-TV in Little Rock, AK, for 11 years, remembers the time a burly farmer from Lonoke, with too much drink, walked up to him in a bar, poked a finger in his chest and said: "You're the one that sent that tornado and tore my house up... I'm going to take your head off."
Bonner said he looked for the bouncer, couldn't spot him, and replied, "That's right about the tornado, and I'll tell you something else, I'll send another one if you don't back off."
Several years ago, when a major flood left water 10 feet deep in San Diego's Mission Valley, Mike Ambrose of KGTV recalls that a woman walked up to his car, whacked the windshield with an umbrella and said, "This rain is your fault."
Chuck Whitaker of WSBT-TV in South Bend, IN, says, "One little old lady called the police department and wanted the weatherman arrested for bringing all the snow."
A woman is upset that it had rained for her daugther's wedding called Tom Jolls of WKBW-TV in Buffalo, NY, to give him a piece of her mind. "She held me responsible and said if she ever met me, she would probably hit me," he said.
Sonny Elliot of WJBK-TV, a forecaster in Detroit area for 30 years, recalls predicting 2 to 4 inches of snow in the city several years ago and more than 8 came down. To retaliate, his collegaues at the station set up a contraption that rained about 200 galoshes on him while he was giving the forecast the next day.
"I've still got the lumps to prove it," he says.