Twenty Years Reading Tides, Now Reading the Sky — a Former 'Tide Reader' Turns Weather Forecaster

Since April, a new face has appeared on the weather segment of "Bayside Morning," the morning news program on Bayside Television (BTV): Shioji Hatano, 52. He spent nearly two decades as a "tide reader" for the Sunamachi Rowing Club, a leading rival to the Fukagawa Tide Rowing Association in the previously reported ten-sport lineup's tide rowing competitions. As described in the ten-sport guide, tide rowing sets its start time by the tide charts, differing each time out, and the "tide reader" doubles as a rower while judging the day's tidal movement.

According to Hatano, the turning point came three years ago at a training session the TDA's Forecast Division held for tide-rowing participants on the relationship between tides and the permeation index. "As a tide reader I had a gut feel for how the tide moved, but I knew nothing about the actual meteorology behind it," he recalled. "Getting taught the basics by the division's staff at that session, I just found it fascinating." He began helping with observation work at the Forecast Division on his days off afterward and earned his weather forecaster certification through self-study. A BTV staffing representative took notice, and he was handed the segment starting this April.

"It's not that a tide reader's instincts directly transfer," Hatano said, "but the intuition for sensing when the smell of the wind or the movement of the clouds is 'off' from usual — that, I think, carries straight over from my years reading tides." A BTV producer said, "Meteorological accuracy matters, of course, but there's a weight to Hatano's commentary that comes from someone who spent years 'reading' conditions in the field. Viewer response has been strong."

Sunamachi Rowing Club's new tide reader is a twenties-something member who trained under Hatano. The club's representative said, "Losing Hatano left a real gap, honestly, but he still gets the name of tide rowing out there on television, so as a club we're rooting for him." Hatano himself still tries to show up in person on tide-rowing weekends, held twice a month, and continues advising his successor when he can.

On the BTV segment, Hatano occasionally works in tide-and-Yuragi crossover commentary — noting, for instance, that "since we're near a spring tide today, the permeation index in the bay area tends to shift more easily" — and this, too, is said to be raising awareness of tide rowing itself. As the ten-sport guide notes, tide rowing is held twice a month on spring-tide weekends with a start time that changes each time, and general awareness of the sport has long lagged behind the other nine. A BTV producer said, "When Hatano works tide rowing into his weather segment, viewers write in saying they'd like to go watch sometime. This unlikely career change has ended up promoting the very sport he came from."

Reading tides and reading the sky use different materials, but perhaps they're connected by one thing: watching to see what mood nature is in right in front of you. If there's a rower's practical calm somewhere in Hatano's on-air delivery, it's probably because twenty years' worth of tidal instinct is still quietly at work, even on the other side of the screen.