Reporters can duck behind their computer screens, but they can’t hide forever.

Inevitably, they’ll get tapped to write a weather yarn.

It might be matter of chasing down rumors of the first flakes east of Verlot in the late fall. It could be a story documenting just how many days in a row it rained in April or asking people what they do to beat the heat when temperatures get toasty in the summer.

Thankfully, there’s the National Weather Service in Seattle to put things in perspective. They did so again last week in providing numbers that underscored just how crummy the weather was during this gray spring and early summer.

Herald design news editor Chuck Taylor also dug deep into the data and found creative ways to visually hammer home how lousy the first half of 2011 was. His graphics confirm what our perceptions might otherwise dismiss as “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

Weather service meteorologists have a knack for turning technical science speak into digestible nuggets of useful information. Often they even come up with good quotes.

They’re a knowledgeable bunch with 19 meteorologists, all with at least four-year university degrees. All told, they have nearly 250 years of experience predicting and studying weather in this tricky region. There are technicians, too, who maintain equipment at the station and at remote locations across Western Washington.

The weather service website is a trove of historical and up-to-the-minute facts and figures. It typically gets 50,000 hits a month in the spring and more than 100,000 a month in the winter. However, the site is worth exploring for more than daily planning.

The weather wizards are trying to reach more people with information.

The Seattle office added a Facebook page earlier this year.

“Our day of Twitter is coming,” meteorologist Ted Buehner said.

The forecasters are predicting it will arrive by fall.