I remember what my father always said about the weather:

If you try to predict the weather, "you're either a dumb - - - or a newcomer because the weather changes so much here.

In the 13+ years that I've dealt with the weather page, I've never been happy with the final product. We don't have a professional weather person working on staff. So we have to rely on people who say they are experts.

But even when I watch local "trained weather" gurus on TV, I wonder if it can be an exact science.

I don't think so, and here's why. The temperature at my house is going to be different across town. And my rain gauge might collect a bit more precipitation. So who has the most accurate information?

It's critical that the information be gathered from the same place and at the same time. We've used the AccuWeather for years. It's a company that gathers weather information and provides a ready-made page for us to include in the paper. It's been a very costly service. So when the contract expired, I cancelled the service and we've launched a new weather package in today's paper.

Ironically, I got this e-mail Monday from a reader named Patrick:

For quite a while, your forecasted temperatures have been ranging way off from from our actual temps. Like 5-15 degrees warmer than what we actually experience. You get your weather data from "AccuWeather."

Not sure this service is worth what you are paying for it. I have noticed that the National Weather Service is much more accurate and you can get that data for free since it is a public service. On Saturday at 3pm it was 43 degrees at my house in Nampa and your weather forecast that day said that it was going to be close to 60 I think. That is just plain incompetence. This has been going on for a while now.

Another thing that is annoying is that your temperature data for Nampa shows up as "estimated" temperatures. Why is this? You are based in Nampa and we have plenty of ACTUAL data available to print. The airport has an official measuring station. You need to start using those.

You need to switch either to the National Weather Service or to a local forecaster who knows what they are doing.

Patrick asks why we have had an "estimated" temperature for Nampa. There's no official weather station in Nampa. But there is one in Boise and Caldwell. I've been waiting for an official weather station in Nampa for years. And if the licensing process goes as predicted, Nampa's airport should have its own station by the end of the month. It means that if the Boise airport is covered with fog, the Nampa airport could be a backup landing location.

Caldwell already has that distinction.

Today, you'll find our first custom weather report. It is compiled from information provided by the National Weather Service. But let me be clear, we don't pretend to be weather experts.

We'll expand the report to include Nampa's official numbers as soon as that weather station is up and going.

As for some of the record highs, lows and accumulated precipitation numbers, we're finding those under the heading of "Boise area" at the National Weather Service.

Watch your weather forecasters on TV. They use much of the same information we are going to gather at www.nws.noaa.gov.

The information is collected at 6 p.m., but as we get better at this, I hope we can collect it later in the night to give you a more accurate reflection of what happened through the early evening as well.

We've also shortened the amount of additional weather information provided in print. The massive report takes up a lot of valuable space. With more people having access to cable television and the Internet, we've decided to use that space for more local news and national headlines.

This is a process that needs to be tweaked a bit more. So if you have a reliable link to key information or have specific suggestions, please contact me at vholbrook@idahopress.com or 465-8110.