15.8" of snow fell during the Great Nor'easter of February 10, 2010
You know what? I’m okay with weather being an imprecise science. I’m even okay with predicting the worst case scenario, because people do need to be prepared just in case.
What I’m not okay with is the weather taking up 3/4 of the newscast for several days beforehand. Really, you can tell me once per newscast that there is snow in the forecast and I will still be able to make the appropriate decisions and preparations.
A QUICK MENTAL CHECKLIST
- Did we replace that broken shovel? Do we have any ice melt?
- Maybe I should go buy some lunchmeat so we can make sandwiches at home rather than go out for hoagies on Saturday.
- Where did I put those D batteries we didn’t use during Hurricane Sandy?
I don’t need 3 weather people talking about the same storm in the same newscast 3 different times; what’s coming, when it’s coming and expected accumulation do not each need their own weatherperson and their own report. I know it’s been warm for the past few winters but 5″-7″ of snow in the Philadelphia area in February isn’t record-breaking news or anything.
Friday morning all 4 local networks went on the air an hour early at 4am to report RAIN. It was actually laughable. Seriously guys, I don’t need reporters on each highway at 4am to report the rain, I’ve got a window and an umbrella, I’m set, thanks.
Snow in February in Philadelphia is not worthy of the time and resources that went into shouting from the rooftops that it was going to snow in Philadelphia in February, the storm even had it’s own graphics package. It seems as though it’s de rigueur these days for the news media to create a panic state rather than just report the news.
Do we really need — OMG! IT’S GOING TO SNOW — several times an hour? What’s wrong with — There’s a nor’easter coming up the coast, which is expected to meet up with cold air from the west, we could get as much as 5″-7″ of snow before it is over — once during the weather’s normal time slot in the newscast? I get it, snow in Philadelphia in February isn’t exactly sexy or man bites dog. I even get that in some small part the weather people are trying to be Paul Revere warning of impending danger but in the end you all just looked like Chicken Little shouting, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” And, believe me when I tell you, you didn’t look like Chicken Little because the forecast changed and the weather took a different track.
It is sort of sickening to think that you’re deliberately scaring people for ratings. You know it’s a crime to stand up in a movie theater and shout FIRE! when there is no fire, because it creates a panic, but yet that’s exactly what the last few days of newscasts felt like.
How about you all go back to reporting the weather and let me decide how worried I should or should not be about the forecast?
This is EXACTLY how I feel when a category 1 hurricane is headed near Florida. The weather people go crazy overboard.
And to make it all the more ridiculous we have less than a 1/4 of an inch of snow out there. I won’t even need to sweep, the sun will melt it by the end of the afternoon. *shakes head*
Love this and so true! Even here they went as far to say the whole state was delcared a state of emergancy the best part was when the next reporter comes on out by the road interviewing with a NY State Police officer and starts off with “all though we are not under a state of emergency here” and then interviews him so we can here to stay off the roads and that the roads are bad. Now earlier in the newscast we heard how there was 167 car accidents in our area I think we got the Idea to stay off the read the number alone scared me I did not need to see the NY State Trooper telling me it not to mention the 2 foot drift in my driveway was even more convincing lol but the fact that the one male reporter started his segment with the alarming whole state of NY is under a state of emergency and the next comes on and says the opposite was so laughable, the best part Is when i went to our govenors website and looked up the actual state of emergency which was for named counties all around the NY City area nothing to do with here….. So when I got up and read your blog this mornign Carol Anne I just had to tell you all this and stand up and say I so agree and Bravo!!
Hugs,
Joy
And, you actually got all the weather that you were forecasted to get. Can you even get out the door? Hasn’t it been snowing there for like 2 weeks now?
Sorry, but I have to disagree. Look at how many people didn’t evacuate New Orleans in advance of Katrina, and how many people didn’t leave the coast as Sandy approached. Some of the hype is probably for ratings; however, we cannot ignore the fact that many people in this great Western society of ours will be get caught by surprise by a severe storm (and then turn around and try to blame somebody else for the fact that they didn’t heed the warnings that a storm of historic proportions was coming). That kind of attitude is why The Weather Channel went to war with NOAA/NWS over naming winter storms for the purpose of making it easier to get the word out on social media.
We also still have pockets of people in this country who have no television at home. I have friends who literally depend on us to call them if the area gets put under tornado watches, because they don’t get any teevee reception at home. The more these weather guys (and gals) put this stuff out there, the more likely it is that people are weather aware because they saw the report on a teevee at work or in some office they had to drop by on their way home.
Of course, I’m skewed toward preparedness and hypervigilance because I live at the intersection of traditional tornado alley and “dixie alley” (the I20 corridor), and have been caught unaware by a tornado. Even though we live in a high-risk area, people still act like “it won’t happen to me”, and then when it does they want to bitch because “the weatherman didn’t warn me”.
I say that, while it certainly gets old hearing a one hour weather report warning that there will be severe weather, it is becoming increasingly necessary in a society that doesn’t want to take responsibility for it’s own actions.
I’m totally onboard for the people not taking responsibility for their own actions deal. My point was that 5″-7″ of snow in Philadelphia in February, which is historically when some of our biggest snowstorms have occurred, isn’t really all that much snow.
I can’t wrap my mind around people not being able to hear the weatherperson calmly give the weather report during any of the area’s 13 news broadcasts through the day (5am, 5:30am, 6am, 6:30am, 11am, 12noon, 4pm, 4:30pm, 5pm, 5:30pm, 6pm, 10pm or 11pm) and plan accordingly. I guess it goes back to the whole idea of personal responsibility.
The people who won’t leave when even the state and federal government are telling you that you are in the path of a historic and dangerous storm boggle my mind. People who have children and/pets who do not heed the warnings leave me speechless and amazed they are making life and death decisions for humans and/or animals who cannot decide for themselves to flee to safety.
I agree that you have a point about reporting non-events. We get a lot of extnsive coverage of the 115 degree heat, and 115 degree heat? Is like the norm around here. Shut up already before I nut-punch you.
I blame a lot of this on the 24 hour news cycle and desperation for ratings, actually. We got 10 inches of snow in my corner of the NJ, which is not unheard of. Unless you watched the local news reporters, who apparently think we’re as wimpy as people in D.C. or something. It wasn’t so much the repeated warnings that got to me as there are a lot of unaware people out there, it was the way that they discussed it being such an epic storm. By Friday morning they knew it was really going to get New England, not us, but you couldn’t tell from the hysterical way they reported it.
>>> the hysterical way they reported it <<<
This! This is my whole point made in one sentence.
How’s this one. After talking with my g/f in Milford, Ct. who works 1 1/2 hrs away from her place of employment, the employer sent out an e-mail to his employees telling them there was a 2 hr delay. Needles to say with 38 inches she never even got out of her door, never mind on the highway. They wiere still clearing roads Sunday. These people may have needed the warnings but we only got 4 inches where I live and the weathermen have everyone in a panic.
We got less than a quarter of an inch here and they carried on for DAYS and DAYS beforehand.