Spring is finally here, which means it'll be eight months or so before I have to listen again to Greg Fishel rhapsodize about the glories of snow.

Fishel, WRAL-TV's chief meteorologist, is the big dog in the yard among our local weather forecasters. He has been around for more than two decades, he's an engaging presence on TV, and every time he visits a school to wax eloquent about isobars and cold fronts, he never fails to mention the school on that evening's broadcast (and he somehow manages to sound sincerely grateful for the gift of yet another T-shirt). Plus, Fishel's forecasts tend to be accurate. All these are his good points.

But Fishel has one huge, honkin' bad point: He can't resist telling viewers how much he likes snow.

Every time there's any accumulation of that satanic offspring of winter clouds, Fishel finds a way to revel in it. At one point this past winter, WRAL actually broadcast videotape of Fishel frolicking outside after a particularly nasty winter storm. His on-air colleagues chuckled and bantered -- TV newspeople are great chucklers and banterers, as you've surely noticed -- but their remarks could be boiled down to this: Oh, that wacky Greg.

Wacky? Looks like dementia to me.

I'm not the only person who feels this way. WRAL sports anchor Tom Suiter -- who, like me, is a member of the Snow Haters Club -- is chronically baffled by his co-worker's glee every time a winter storm approaches. Suiter's best guess is that Fishel simply appreciates a break in the routine every once in a while. "Greg likes interesting weather," he says.

That's appropriately diplomatic -- Suiter, after all, has to work with the guy. But Holly Springs resident Paul Keadle feels no need to dress up his feelings about Fishel's love affair with snow. "He has annoyed me forever," Keadle says. "He's always got that gleam in his eye, that little smirk [when snow approaches]."

Keadle has a theory about Fishel's snow obsession, which he outlined in a recent letter to the editor of the Holly Springs Sun. He believes that Fishel and other weather forecasters use their Doppler radars to manipulate the movements of weather systems so that snow repeatedly strikes the South. The reason Fishel smiles every time snow is forecast, Keadle says, is because he's getting a kickback from manufacturers of snow-removal equipment.

(Note to conspiracy theorists: This is a joke. Keadle doesn't actually think Fishel can control the weather, nor does he think Fishel is getting kickbacks. Keadle is a retiree, and he has lots of time on his hands. He entertains himself by writing letters to newspapers. But Keadle says he really hates snow, and he isn't joking about that.)

Uh, Greg? Can you feel our pain, buddy? Any chance you could knock off the happy talk next winter when snow arrives?

I tried to make that request directly to Fishel, but he's not returning my calls. I think he's still mad at me because I demanded a couple of months ago that he issue a correction when he predicted a dusting of flakes with no accumulation, and we instead got a traffic-stopping snowstorm the next morning. I have to come clean with my mistakes. Why shouldn't he?

Greg, if you're reading, here's the deal: You stop glorifying snow, and I don't forward Keadle's letter to prosecutors.

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