Companions under a canopy of low clouds at Cape Hatteras 



Keeping an eye 

 On the elements 



Ronald Craddock's right hand 

 sweeps out toward the southeastern 

 horizon, drawing a wavy, imaginary 

 line of mounded, cumulus clouds. 



"When you see those clouds piling 

 up to the southeast," he says, "you're 

 in for some bad, stormy weather. My 

 daddy used to call 'em the 'sand hills,' 

 because that's what they looked like to 

 him." 



In his seventy-six years in Mann's 



Harbor, spent 

 mostly as a fisher- 

 man, Craddock has 

 seen his share of 

 storms. And years 

 before the weather 

 began posing for 

 satellite photo- 

 graphs, Craddock 

 was reading "the 

 signs" and fore- 



casting the Craddock 

 weather. 



"You can get the weather on the 

 radio nowadays," Craddock says, "but 

 those old timers, they'd look at the ele- 

 ments." 



One sign in the night sky was un- 

 canny: "If you see a circle around the 

 moon, watch out," Craddock says. 

 "And when there are stars inside the 

 circle, you're looking for bad weather." 



But the best sign-reading and 

 forecasting of any generation can't of- 

 fer warranties or rein in rough weather. 

 In 1957, Craddock sat in a 32-foot shad 

 boat and watched while a tornado 

 danced toward him across the 

 Albemarle Sound. 



"We thought out time had come," 

 Craddock recalls. "We saw it a-comin' 

 out in the Alligator River, right white. 

 We didn't have much time to get 

 Continued on next page 



