Rivers in the sky, it's real

Back on Jan. 11, Peter Funt's column appeared in The Star newspaper, titled, "Cry me an atmospheric river." The author wrote about some of the terms used in weather forecasting, and how news media have sprinkled melodramatic dust on these terms, causing some to react like the person in the painting, "The Scream," by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.

Let's take a leisurely swim into the waters of the...