Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net SUMMER SNOW STORM By ADAM CHASE _Snow in summer is of course impossible. Any weather expert will tell you so. Weather Bureau Chief Botts was certain no such absurdity could occur. And he would have been right except for one thing. It snowed that summer._ It was, as the expression goes, raining cats and dogs. Since the Weather Bureau had predicted fair and warmer, the Weather Bureau was not particularly happy about the meteorological state of affairs. No one, however was shocked. Until it started to snow. This was on the twenty-fifth of July in the U.S.A.... Half an hour before the fantastic meteorological turn of events, Bureau Chief Botts dangled the forecast sheet before Johnny Sloman's bloodshot eyes and barked, "It's all over the country by now, you dunderhead!" Then, as an afterthought: "Did you write this?" "Yes," said Sloman miserably. Slowly, Botts said, "Temperature, eighty degrees. Precipitation expected: snow. _Snow_, Sloman. Well, that's what it says." "It was a mistake, Chief. Just--heh-heh--a mistake." "The prediction should have been for fair and warmer!" Botts screamed. "But it's raining," Sloman pointed out. "We make mistakes," said Botts in a suddenly velvety voice. Then, as if _that_ had been a mistake, bellowed: "But not this kind of mistake, Sloman! Snow in July! We have a reputation to maintain! If not for accuracy, at least for credulity." "Yes, sir," said Johnny Sloman. One of the troubles was, he had a hangover. Although, actually, that was a consequence of the real trouble. The real trouble was his fiancee. Make that his ex-fiancee. Because last night Jo-Anne had left him. "You--you're just going no place at all, Johnny Sloman," she had said. "You're on a treadmill and--not even running very fast." She had given him back the quarter-carat ring tearfully, but Johnny hadn't argued. Jo-Anne had a stubborn streak and he knew when Jo-Anne's mind was made up. So Johnny had gone and gotten drunk for the first time since the night after college graduation, not too many years ago, and the result was a nationally-distributed forecast of snow.