I don't think that's it (we get pretty strong winds on occasion outside rain, and it doesn't seem to be affected then), though I suppose it's possible.

I've always heard that the DirecTV guys would boost power to areas that had heavy atmospheric coverage (don't know if this is an old wives' tale or not), and I figured that their algorithm for that didn't take into account the fact that their signal would be shooting in at an angle, and not from directly above. But that's probably more just an insane rationale for a weird problem. It still goes out less than cable ever did, and I refuse to pay Time-Warner any more money than I have to.

(I used to have a problem that if it rained in the summer my DBS went out for a good while, but not in the winter. I finally figured out that it was weighing down the leaves on the big trees around me and making them droop into the LoS to the satellite from my dish. Moved the dish 20 feet or so and it solved the problem.)