Weather Coverage 101

Weather is probably the planet's oldest and most common discussion topic.
Everyone talks about the weather, and the meteorological Goldilocks in all of us is rarely satisfied. Either it's too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. It's rarely just right.
Like cop reporting and, to a certain degree, sporting-event coverage, there is a certain formula for weather reporting, and it goes something like this:

1.) Several graphs on what's going on, possibly told via an anecdote such as this:

Edith Johnson stepped out onto the porch of her Beaumont home and grimaced at watery scene before her.
With her yard flooded for a week, the 81-year-old has been cooped up for days in her home, waiting for the waters to recede so she can get to her car and go to the store.
"I'm tired of all this dadblammed rain," said Johnson, a retired school teacher and widow for the past 10 years. "I need to get to the store soon, because my beer supply is running low."
Johnson and other Southeast Texans for the past week have endured record-setting rain that has swamped cars at intersections, flooded hundreds of homes and, in general, made life miserable.

2.) Next we go to the statistical facts to support the anecdote. This would include rainfall amounts for the week, month and year to date, with comparative figures from the previous year as well as the average. (I'm going to just make up some numbers here, by the way.)

Since July 1, Beaumont has been splashed with 21 inches of rain, making it the wettest July in history, according to the National Weather Service. The average for July is only 15 inches, the NWS said.
However, the 38 inches of rain so far this year still is well below the average of 45 inches, according to the NWS.

3.) So what's causing all the rain?

Roy Bucknut, an NWS meteorologist based in Lake Charles, La., said a stalled low-pressure area hanging partly over the Gulf and partly over land has been steadily pumping precipitation into Southeast Texas.

4.) So what's the forecast?

Bucknut said conditions should clear up by 2 p.m. today as the tropical weather moves north, with a 30 percent chance of rain and a high in the low 90s, with southwest winds of 25 mph. Saturday's forecast calls for a 20 percent chance of rain with a low around 70 and a high of 95.

5.) Now for the parade of anecdotes capturing the effects of the past week's rain. Essentially, this is a series of details regarding how the heavy rains have affected people's lives, from those who clear debris out of ditches to people who might have lost a car or home in the flooding.

So there it is, our paint-by-numbers weather reporting.
Weather stories are a good way to break in new, inexperienced reporters. Once they learn the formula, and all the writing speed and reporting consistency it brings, they can apply that to other areas of their news coverage, from in-depth, issue-oriented pieces for the weekend to breaking news and colorful features.
Some day, they'll learn to get away with creatively breaking the formula and attain the next level of professional development, one that will put them in position of landing a job on a larger paper, if that's their goal.