Weather used to be something that happened to humans, something we could wonder about. Those days were wonderful. Since we couldn’t do anything about it and had little clue what was coming, only to the extent that it killed the crops, ruined a picnic or blew some homes down did weather become more than a topic of polite conversation. I remember as small child having a real sense of wonder about the weather, mostly because I didn’t understand much of it (I also wondered why the forecast was always wrong).

Weather still happens to us, but now we all know more about it and the forecasts are more precise. You can plan an outdoor lunch at a New York cafe at 1 pm comfortable in the certainty that the squall won’t arrive until 3. Thanks to the Internet and the Weather Channel and cable news and radio weather on the 8’s, we have a dash of knowledge. Thing is, that just makes us worry more. If lunch is really good and the waiter’s a little slow and you order an second espresso …

More than TV or the web, however, scientists are to blame for our modern-day obsession with weather. They’re always putting more numbers and labels on the phenomena and trying to make it more and more simple for us regular folks, but in reality they make it more complex.

A thunderstorm is no longer rain and lightning on the way, it’s a “line of storms” with an “intense cell” that’s bright red and likely contains “damaging straight-line winds,” a euphemism for a tornado insofar as your trees are concerned. A hurricane is no longer just a storm with an eye and high winds and big waves … a thing to get the hell away from. Now it’s merely a Cat 2 but there’s the potential that it’ll go frighteningly Cat 4 before landfall, there’s the increased storm surge on the right side of the eyewall to watch for, there’s the “cone of possibility” and the probability that it’ll stall in the Gulf and six different forecast models and … well, maybe I’ll just stay put and worry.

This complexifying of the weather took one giant leap back in the late 1960s, when Herbert Saffir gave us the Saffir-Simpson scale so we could worry in great detail about hurricanes. (In 2005, Hurricane Wilma went off the charts and one scientist suggested the scale needed to be revised. Saffir’s response: “As simple as it is, I like the scale. I don’t like to see it too complex.”)

Then in 1971 came T. Theodore Fujita’s Fujita scale, which allowed the experts to attach numerical concern to a tornado after the fact based on damage. (Nowadays, forecasts warn of potentially devastating F4s and F5s, so as you huddle in your cellar you can worry more. And, just for good measure, the scale was recently revised so now you won’t even understand it.)

Last year, scientists introduced the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale, giving it the we-know-nobody-will-actually-use-this acronym NESIS. It’s used to evaluate the impact of a powerful snowstorm soon after it strikes. While obviously useless to the public, at least we don’t have to worry about it.

Today, scientists announced an El Nino scale. C’mon, scientists! Give it a rest.

The ENSO Intensity Scale (don’t forget this name; it could save your life someday) varies from W1 to W5 (W=warm). El Nino’s cooler sister, La Nina, will be rated C1 to C5. Forecasters plan to issue watches and advisories. I’m going to have to leave my NOAA radio on 24/7 now. Honey, El Nino is coming! Grab the kids, the umbrella, we’re heading to Hong Kong!

While it’s true that the strength of El Nino in the Pacific can impact rainfall in the United States and hurricane formation in the Atlantic and other weather around the globe, the connection is one of many factors that combine to play out over weeks and months, and knowing whether El Nino is a W5 or a C32 has zero meaning for the average person on a given day. The old way of talking about El Nino (it’s strong, or weak, or waning, or done) was fine. But weather and climate scientists get bored with the weather, routine as it often is, and so maybe they dream this stuff up just to keep the research grants flowing.

By the way, I don’t know if El Nino affects Hong Kong. One more thing to worry about.

There’s more. An Arizona meteorologist said last week the local National Weather Service office was thinking that the Southwest’s monsoon should be renamed something like “summer thunderstorm season” to better reflect the danger posed to the public. What, monsoon doesn’t sound ominous enough? To me, it sounds far more ominous than a routine thunderstorm. Heck, most people don’t even know what monsoon means, and that alone engenders fear (it also gives the the Southwest a real exotic feel). Plus, monsoon has more O’s than ominous. On the O-scale, thunderstorms rank just a 1.

There’s been a minor outcry from the public on this one, and the NWS has apparently shelved the idea.

I should note that all these scales can be traced back to the original disaster measure, the Richter Scale, introduced in 1935. You know the Richter Scale. It’s simple, right? Well … It’s no longer in use, as scientists have since developed the more complex moment magnitude scale.

Also, for the record, there is the Torino Scale, which gauges the threat of asteroid impact and planetary annihilation. It usually sits at zero or 1 on a scale that goes up to 10 (planet-wide destruction). We never have to worry about the Torino Scale unless we really have to worry about the Torino Scale. Then again, scientists actually argue about the worth of this scale, so maybe we should worry.

Here in Phoenix today, by the way, I see a thunderstorm developing to the north. But the monsoon hasn’t officially arrived, so I’m not going to worry.