The
first decent winter storm of the season is on the way to the Miami
Valley. We know it’s coming, but we don’t know exactly what we
should expect. We’re not getting a lot of details from the local
newscasts, either. The local television media generally makes a
big fuss over the weather. In the Dayton area, there are 4 major
television stations that feature regular newscasts. Now, I would
generally say that these stations are all equally bad...But in all
fairness, two of our local stations are owned by Sinclair
Broadcast Group, so their “newscasts” really don’t count as “news,” per
se. Anyway, the local newscasts have their own weather “teams” which
usually consist of one “Chief Meteorologist” and a few other television
personalities (I am sure they all studied meteorology at some point,
but I have a really hard time referring to these folks as
“meterologists”). As part of any of the local television weather
forecasts, one typically has to sit through at least 2 or 3 animated
synopses of the weather for the preceding 24 hours plus some elapsed
video of the day’s weather from an outside tower cam. Eventually—if you
really hang in through all the patter and cute little personal
anecdotes—you might still hold out hope that you’re going to get a good
idea of what the weather might be like for the rest of the week.
But if you think it’s that easy, you’re only kidding yourself...If you
wait around long enough, you might get to see a forecast for the next
24 hours, complete with some computer animated duckies or
snowmen. There’s usually a 5-day or 10-day forecast at the very
end, but if you really track these over the course of a week or so, you
can quickly get a very good idea just how ambiguous and inaccurate they are.I would have thought that “Triple Doppler Radar” and “FutureCast” technology would eventually prove to be more accurate than rain gauges and wall barometers. I actually miss the days when a weather forecast was about 2 minutes long and it consisted mostly of black and white satellite images.
Lately, the weather folks are getting more and more crafty in how they can suck people into staying tuned. Here’s how it works: At the beginning of the week (or maybe over the weekend) you might hear that the weather team is “keeping an eye” on some kind of “disturbance” that might sweep through later in the week. Later on, it’s revealed that we might see the first “accumulation” of the season by the end of the week. However, because some of the “computer models” might “disagree,” you’re going to have to stay tuned for regular updates. While you’re at it, you might consider downloading the channel’s desktop weather alert software so you can get “lifesaving” updates that are “up to the minute” and “dependable.” Now, as the weather system comes closer, the weather folks are forced to give a few more details. But there’s a bit of discretion to exercise, here. The weather folks seem to be under the impression that the general public is absolutely terrified of snow. They go so far as to refer to it as “the white stuff” instead of calling it “snow” or “precipitation,” inferring that maybe if they don’t use the proper terminology, they will somehow magically ward off the bad weather. It’s supposed to be cute, but it’s just plain annoying.
As of now, we’re about 12 to 24 hours away from what might be a respectable snowfall. For the past few days, all we’ve heard is that the snow will be “plowable.” Plowable? Tonight, I finally saw some real numbers in a forecast and it looks like we’re looking at 3 to 5 inches. Whatever the case, I’ll need a shovel to get through it all...And I’m not just talking about the snow...
