My editors told me not to quote Bob Dylan in my headline, because, apparently, Bob Dylan’s people like to sue, which didn’t seem very Bob Dylan to me at all. So I called my friend Josh Cuban at Harvard Law, and he agreed to represent me if this column earns me an earful of throaty hoboish mumbling from the ’60’s greatest folk-rocker. Got that, Bobby? The times they are a-changin'.

But really, I had no choice but to quote Bob Dylan, Minnesota’s third most famous son after Jesse Ventura and Prince. There’s no other authority on the murky, mysterious, misunderstood role of weatherpersons in today’s society, though I considered some others. Carlos Maycotte, The Sun’s associate editor, could be, but he’s not American. Kevin Federline might know something about predictions — he certainly sold his shares of Britney at the right time. After a long week of heavy snows and vaudeville shows, I decided, though, only a perspective as wise as Dylan’s can really help us out.

Dylan was right when he wrote that you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but you do need weathermen for other purposes. I’ve been fascinated by weathermen since I ran a pay-for-weather service at the local Dunkin’ Donuts at the age of 10. In the old days, the really old days, prophets and fortunetellers would go from village to village, predicting the weather in exchange for flasks brimming with mid-grade bourbon. Usually, the soothsayers offered pretty obvious guesses — gems like “it’ll be hot in July.” As a result, the townspeople would get irritated, stand around angrily with pitchforks, mumble things to one another and chase away the “weatherwitches,” which was what the local drunk called them after one especially nasty bourbon-for-forecast trade.

Today, we’ve moved past the weatherwitches, what with our sophisticated knowledge of meteorology. Or so I thought, until I started researching this article. Many television weathermen — so-called “meteorologists” — are actually nothing more than hacks who took a couple of Comm classes in college. They put on their ties and jackets, adjust their toupees and pretend to know a lot about wind chill and lake effect snows. Stumper: Why are there lake effect snows but no lake effect rains?

Take Al Roker, for example. He’s been a teevee weatherman for quite a while, but he’s really more of an entertainer. He appeared in Men in Black. He holds the record for most appearances on Conan. He’s even Lenny Kravitz’s cousin. But what does he know about the weather? This is not ’Nam. This is weather forecasting. There are rules.

A lot of weathermen, I’ve noticed, have interesting first names, like Skip. Who names their kid Skip? My theory is that Skip’s mom had always really wanted one of those “Skip-It” toys they advertised on Nickelodeon back in the last century, and her dad wouldn’t buy it for her because he was pissed about trading away his bourbon, and really, it was a stupid-looking toy anyway. It looked like one of those ankle bracelets they put on ex-cons when they’re under house arrest, but it was for kids. So Skip became a weatherman, mostly because he was tired of having to walk around with a dumb glorified jump rope tied to his leg, and the schoolgirls used to make fun of him. Eventually, he fell in with a gang, and became known as “Skip the Crip.” Dear Crips: Please don’t hurt me, I’ll make fun of the Bloods next week, I swear.

Weathermen often seem a little off, like Steve Carell’s character in Anchorman, who was actually based on Cornell alum Adam Fischman ’05. Or the guy on Channel 3 in Syracuse who, the day before the big snowstorm last week, wore a ski jacket on the air. Listen, dude, you’re inside a studio. The cameraman is wearing a t-shirt. There aren’t even confetti flurries blowing in the air.

I could make fun of weathermen for days. But, as I think about it, I realize that there must be some weatherman, somewhere, who is legit. For a while, I thought about declaring that Bill Murray is my favorite weatherman, but someone told me he’s an actor. Has anyone else noticed that TBS plays Groundhog Day over and over? Speaking of TBS, remember when they used to start their programs five minutes later than the rest of the world?

My favorite weatherman, I realized, though, was much like Bill Murray: Kelly Kapowski, homecoming queen of Bayside, Helen to Zack and Slater’s Troy. That one episode where she forecast the weather, spreading smiling suns smack from Malibu to Tijuana, she radiated confidence and warmth. None of Skip’s arrogance or Al Roker’s lovable bulk. Calm, cool, beautiful and down-to-earth.

Just like K-Fed.

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Some readers felt that in my column of Feb. 7, it was implied that I interfered with data collection in a scientific study of Cornell students’ awareness of American history. No altered questionnaires were submitted to the study conducted by the University of Connecticut, an institution with which I am not affiliated. Furthermore, Cornell students did not “all fail” the study. Close to one-third did pass, though Cornell was 48th of 50 schools ranked. I apologize for the errors, though I remain skeptical of the study’s validity.

Justin Weitz is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at jdw42@cornell.edu. Free Weitz appears alternate Wednesdays.