Bogus Weather Hype

Is it just me, or does it seem like weather forecasting has gone off the
deep end?

Once again, we've been deluged with "Winter Storm Warnings" in the Midwest
that have turned out to produce a few inches of snow. As one station
(primarily the Weather Channel) starts to hype the coming "huge storm" all
the local stations feel compelled to jump on the bandwagon. They, in turn,
start running live segments of "Doppler Radar" and serious talking heads
showing all of us that it is -- *gasp!* -- actually SNOWING outside!

Imagine! In Iowa! In January!

Then, the inevitable school closings follow, as the head of the school board
is showed wringing his hands on live TV, pining for the "safety of the
kids." This is followed by dire warnings not to travel unless "absolutely
necessary"...

Meanwhile, the storm peters out after a few inches of snow, the kids play
outside all day, the malls are packed, and the adults laugh it off as just
another screwed up weather forecast.

Sorry, but this situation seems to have NOTHING to do with meteorology. I
took weather classes in college, and have been a keen observer of it all my
life. I was able to take one look at the radar and satellite pictures, and
knew immediately that they were blowing sunshine up our butts yet again.

I think it's all about ratings, and the public is being misled on a grand
scale, at an annual cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost
productivity. Worst of all, NO ONE is taking their warnings seriously
anymore (except the schools, who love the paid time off), so when we really
DO get hit with a blizzard, no one will be prepared.

When I was a kid in Wisconsin, if they had closed school every time we got 3
inches of snow, we'd have had the whole winter off!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Slow News Week. The tsunami story is getting old (and expensive to cover),
the Iraqi elections are still three weeks away, and things are pretty quiet
in Washington.

To be fair, traffic is worse and people's commutes are longer than they used
to be. OK, I think the TV weathermen are nuts too, but are you just
beginning to notice this?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:CgZCd.620242$wV.514014@attbi_s54...
Is it just me, or does it seem like weather forecasting has gone off the
deep end?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:CgZCd.620242$wV.514014@attbi_s54...
Is it just me, or does it seem like weather forecasting has gone off the
deep end?

Once again, we've been deluged with "Winter Storm Warnings" in the Midwest
that have turned out to produce a few inches of snow. As one station
(primarily the Weather Channel) starts to hype the coming "huge storm" all
the local stations feel compelled to jump on the bandwagon. They, in
turn,
start running live segments of "Doppler Radar" and serious talking heads
showing all of us that it is -- *gasp!* -- actually SNOWING outside!

Imagine! In Iowa! In January!

Then, the inevitable school closings follow, as the head of the school
board
is showed wringing his hands on live TV, pining for the "safety of the
kids." This is followed by dire warnings not to travel unless "absolutely
necessary"...

Meanwhile, the storm peters out after a few inches of snow, the kids play
outside all day, the malls are packed, and the adults laugh it off as just
another screwed up weather forecast.

Sorry, but this situation seems to have NOTHING to do with meteorology.
I
took weather classes in college, and have been a keen observer of it all
my
life. I was able to take one look at the radar and satellite pictures,
and
knew immediately that they were blowing sunshine up our butts yet again.

I think it's all about ratings, and the public is being misled on a grand
scale, at an annual cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost
productivity. Worst of all, NO ONE is taking their warnings seriously
anymore (except the schools, who love the paid time off), so when we
really
DO get hit with a blizzard, no one will be prepared.

When I was a kid in Wisconsin, if they had closed school every time we got
3
inches of snow, we'd have had the whole winter off!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


Don't forget the "deadly" wind chill that will freeze exposed flesh in 30
seconds. It's pure BS as are the "winter storm warnings" which get
broadcast if it looks like a half inch of snow might fall. Our one foot if
snow today has amounted to 3 inches. Maybe they use a different ruler.

I wonder how our ancestors survived all these deadly weather attacks without
the benefit of modern media warnings.

On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 21:48:18 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

Is it just me, or does it seem like weather forecasting has gone off the
deep end?

Once again, we've been deluged with "Winter Storm Warnings" in the Midwest
that have turned out to produce a few inches of snow. As one station
(primarily the Weather Channel) starts to hype the coming "huge storm" all
the local stations feel compelled to jump on the bandwagon. They, in turn,
start running live segments of "Doppler Radar" and serious talking heads
showing all of us that it is -- *gasp!* -- actually SNOWING outside!

Imagine! In Iowa! In January!

Then, the inevitable school closings follow, as the head of the school board
is showed wringing his hands on live TV, pining for the "safety of the
kids." This is followed by dire warnings not to travel unless "absolutely
necessary"...

Meanwhile, the storm peters out after a few inches of snow, the kids play
outside all day, the malls are packed, and the adults laugh it off as just
another screwed up weather forecast.

Sorry, but this situation seems to have NOTHING to do with meteorology. I
took weather classes in college, and have been a keen observer of it all my
life. I was able to take one look at the radar and satellite pictures, and
knew immediately that they were blowing sunshine up our butts yet again.

I think it's all about ratings, and the public is being misled on a grand
scale, at an annual cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost
productivity. Worst of all, NO ONE is taking their warnings seriously
anymore (except the schools, who love the paid time off), so when we really
DO get hit with a blizzard, no one will be prepared.

When I was a kid in Wisconsin, if they had closed school every time we got 3
inches of snow, we'd have had the whole winter off!

You've addressed one of my pet peeves. The weather
reporting/forcasting in the Philadelphia area (and everywhere else,
probably) is enough to make you sick. Hey, maybe that's what happened
to you!

At the risk of sounding even older than I am, I don't remember getting
very many days off from school in New England when I was a kid. And
we got a lot of snow. We walked to school, uphill both ways.

When we get a "big" storm now, they have all day coverage. You can
actually sit there all day, if you want to, and watch the storm on TV.
It's not only the weather either. I can no longer stomach the local
news shows at all.
Rich Russell

Once again, we've been deluged with "Winter Storm Warnings" in the Midwest
[...]
showing all of us that it is -- *gasp!* -- actually SNOWING outside!

Of course it's about ratings. But it's also about liability. I
remember reading about some people who went out boating on a lake in
upstate NY on a gorgeous day after seeing weather forcasts that were
equally glowing, and a freak storm came up and they drowned. The
weather station lost the lawsuit. (no, I don't have a cite, maybe
somebody else remembers)

If the forecasters go overboard with "Oh my god it's raining STAY
INSIDE!", then a lot of money can be made by putting out calming and
supportive weather information. Those stations will be more accurate
more of the time, their reliability will become known, they will make
more money, and then one day they will make a mistake.

Every agency that relied on their sunny forecast and is now stuck with
a foot of snow, six dead children, and schoolbusses stuck sideways
across the guardrails will forget all the time, money, and lives saved
by =not= overreacting in the past, and will eat their lunch.

Think "VFR not reccomended" is any different?

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:CgZCd.620242$wV.514014@attbi_s54...
Is it just me, or does it seem like weather forecasting has gone off the
deep end?

Once again, we've been deluged with "Winter Storm Warnings" in the Midwest
that have turned out to produce a few inches of snow. As one station
(primarily the Weather Channel) starts to hype the coming "huge storm" all
the local stations feel compelled to jump on the bandwagon. They, in
turn, start running live segments of "Doppler Radar" and serious talking
heads showing all of us that it is -- *gasp!* -- actually SNOWING outside!

Har! Har!

Jay, (gasping for breath between chortles of hysterical laughter.....)
you should see what happens up here in the north end of California's share
of the Mojave Desert when it snows. Honest, it does that every three or four
years. Back in '83... why, we had ten inches!
Two years ago, about four inches fell, and stuck, just before sunrise.
Would you believe about one out of six or seven cars rattled down the street
with chains! Some of those didn't think about what that extra eight inches
or so of chain was going to do to the fenders, if they didn't tie it down.
Yep, school was dismissed. The city declared a skeleton workday. Half
the Navy employees failed to show up for work. A few days later, a citizen
wrote a letter-to-the-editor condemning the Highway Patrol for not
establishing emergency escorts on the highways.

Rant=overboard

It's absolutely become a joke, and it has what should be the smarter public
officials acting like Chicken Little. We've had a total of about 12 inches
of snow this year in central Wisconsin. 8 inches of that came in one night.
It's actually all melted now and everything is ice covered. The snowmobile
trails are closed because there isn't any snow, but I bet we've had over 20
winter storm warnings and watches. We had one yesterday, it didn't even
snow last night or today. I'm sure we'll have a few issued tonight. My
television screen has burning across the bottom from the Winter Storm
Warning ticker.

No school here this past Monday. Too much ice. Funny how our 55 employees
all made it to work. Funny how they made it to work alive, heck nobody even
ran in the ditch! Funny how the 10 semi's we loaded all delivered their
loads all around the state and then miraculously made here to pick up our
loads. Funny how every other business around was able to operate, but the
business of educating our kids has to stop every time the sun doesn't shine.
When I was little and lived in town, they would still have school for the
kids that could walk to school, even if they couldn't pick up the kids on
the bus route. Nowadays the "norm" is school is cancelled and you listen to
the radio to find out the days that you actually HAVE school! If it does
start snowing, more often then not, they will cancel school but keep the
kids there just until after lunch because then they can count it as a full
school day.

And it isn't just in the winter, the weathermen do the same thing in the
summer. If we would get 1/10th of the rain, hail, thunderstorms, high
winds, and tornados that they predict, this state wouldn't be fit to live
in.

Just off of MSNBC in a desperate million word per minute fashion...."So in
addition to the rain and the snow and the freezing temperatures that will be
blasting the midwest and moving up into New England, we will get all the
effects of those conditions as well, with over 10 to 12 inches of snow
expected for much of the area....." No ****?? Really? Now that's a
newsflash... never before have I had to experience the actual effects of the
rain, snow, freezing temperatures and bitter windchills... somehow it was
all surreal.... All that stuff must have happened while I was in school.

Oh, and if I hear the term "Wintery Mix" one more time, I think I'm going to
gag.

As far as weathermen being nuts... our local weatherman years ago was
actually arrested two or three times for public nudity.

Jim

Would you believe about one out of six or seven cars rattled down the
street with chains! Some of those didn't think about what that extra eight
inches or so of chain was going to do to the fenders, if they didn't tie
it down.

Hee hee!

I remember seeing this on a road trip to the Gulf of Mexico back in the
'80s. The south was getting hit with a rare ice storm, and the locals had
NO idea what to do. (We, of course, kept sailing warily along without
difficulty, as the natives careened gracefully into the ditch...)

We saw one guy with a beautiful Cadillac that had chains on his back wheels
that were installed incorrectly. There were a loose ends about 5 inches
long that were absolutely ripping the **** out of his wheel wells as he
drove, apparently oblivious to what all that racket meant was happening to
his car.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

We had the same doom and gloom reports of people running to the stores to
hoard bread and batteries, since we have up to three inches of snow forecast
here in eastern Wisconsin!

I don't get it- this is Wisconsin in winter, aren't we supposed to get snow
and not flip out? I think the worst part about any snow accumulation is the
fact that I'll need to shovel in front of the hangar door before it gets
frozen and impossible to remove.

Don't the networks and local news people have anything better for the
current news cycle?


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:CgZCd.620242$wV.514014@attbi_s54...
Is it just me, or does it seem like weather forecasting has gone off the
deep end?

Once again, we've been deluged with "Winter Storm Warnings" in the Midwest
that have turned out to produce a few inches of snow. As one station
(primarily the Weather Channel) starts to hype the coming "huge storm" all
the local stations feel compelled to jump on the bandwagon. They, in
turn, start running live segments of "Doppler Radar" and serious talking
heads showing all of us that it is -- *gasp!* -- actually SNOWING outside!

Imagine! In Iowa! In January!

Then, the inevitable school closings follow, as the head of the school
board is showed wringing his hands on live TV, pining for the "safety of
the kids." This is followed by dire warnings not to travel unless
"absolutely necessary"...

Meanwhile, the storm peters out after a few inches of snow, the kids play
outside all day, the malls are packed, and the adults laugh it off as just
another screwed up weather forecast.

Sorry, but this situation seems to have NOTHING to do with meteorology.
I took weather classes in college, and have been a keen observer of it all
my life. I was able to take one look at the radar and satellite pictures,
and knew immediately that they were blowing sunshine up our butts yet
again.

I think it's all about ratings, and the public is being misled on a grand
scale, at an annual cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost
productivity. Worst of all, NO ONE is taking their warnings seriously
anymore (except the schools, who love the paid time off), so when we
really DO get hit with a blizzard, no one will be prepared.

When I was a kid in Wisconsin, if they had closed school every time we got
3 inches of snow, we'd have had the whole winter off!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Do they shut down programming, and have a talking head taking calls from the
local area? "We have Joe from Bothell on the line, and he says that there is
a half-inch of snow out there!" "Chris, from Bellingham, is on the line. How
bad is it up there, Chris?" "It's snowing, but it's not sticking." "Now
let's switch live to our Mimi Linguini who is monitoring the freeway. Any
accidents yet, Mimi?" "No, but slush is beginning to collect on the road
surface." On and on ad infinitum. Urp.

Bob Gardner

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:CgZCd.620242$wV.514014@attbi_s54...
Is it just me, or does it seem like weather forecasting has gone off the
deep end?

Once again, we've been deluged with "Winter Storm Warnings" in the Midwest
that have turned out to produce a few inches of snow. As one station
(primarily the Weather Channel) starts to hype the coming "huge storm" all
the local stations feel compelled to jump on the bandwagon. They, in
turn, start running live segments of "Doppler Radar" and serious talking
heads showing all of us that it is -- *gasp!* -- actually SNOWING outside!

Imagine! In Iowa! In January!

Then, the inevitable school closings follow, as the head of the school
board is showed wringing his hands on live TV, pining for the "safety of
the kids." This is followed by dire warnings not to travel unless
"absolutely necessary"...

Meanwhile, the storm peters out after a few inches of snow, the kids play
outside all day, the malls are packed, and the adults laugh it off as just
another screwed up weather forecast.

Sorry, but this situation seems to have NOTHING to do with meteorology.
I took weather classes in college, and have been a keen observer of it all
my life. I was able to take one look at the radar and satellite pictures,
and knew immediately that they were blowing sunshine up our butts yet
again.

I think it's all about ratings, and the public is being misled on a grand
scale, at an annual cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost
productivity. Worst of all, NO ONE is taking their warnings seriously
anymore (except the schools, who love the paid time off), so when we
really DO get hit with a blizzard, no one will be prepared.

When I was a kid in Wisconsin, if they had closed school every time we got
3 inches of snow, we'd have had the whole winter off!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"