Back in ye olden days, prognosticating the future was a
hanging offense. I would like to bring that punishment back, particularly in
regard to meteorologists.
I understand that accurately predicting violent weather
eruptions is next to impossible. This was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt
when respected and revered scientist and storm chaser Tim Samaras lost his life
when a tornado he was tracking zigged instead of zagged, taking him, his driver
Carl Young, and his son Paul with him. I can only hope that they wound up in
the land of the great and powerful Oz and did not suffer when the tornado took
them. They were just following a storm, just trying to glean more information
about what causes tornados so that in the future, they could give towns more
than 16 minutes to seek shelter. While
you can do a lot with 16 minutes, or the exact amount of time between the National
Weather Service warning to the residents of Moore, Oklahoma and when the
tornado destroyed their town, but think of how much more you could do with 20
or 30? I have nothing but respect for Tim and what he died trying to do. May he
rest in peace.
But that was a big and wild storm, filled with craziness.
What about those calm and mild days when the weather people still don't seem to
be able to read a radar screen? What do we do about those people? I will never forget a random Saturday where it was
supposed to be 80, sunny, and mild and it turned out to be 60, overcast, and
damp. I was expected a tan, instead I wore a jacket. I remember being
absolutely amazed that the weather guys were wrong on not just one, or two, but
all THREE counts. Can you imagine if you were wrong that spectacularly and
publicly at your job? Your ass would be out the door with a cardboard box of
your personal items in ten minutes.
The best part is that this happens daily. I spent the last
week hearing about how terrible Thursday was going to be with wicked storms all
day long. I went so far as to pick up a case of water and clean my house. (My
thought process on the latter was that if wind and hail caused anything to land
on my house and damage it, I didn't want to walk an obstacle course of Lego
mini-figs and Babysitter Club books to get to the mess.) I woke up with a sense
of dread, waiting to see what foul weather would come. The morning storm
brought on a level of darkness only seen during full eclipses. As my phone blew
up with weather alerts about hail, winds, flash flooding, rain of frogs, etc., I
carefully moved a chair out from under the skylights, put on Sesame Street on
PBS so that I could get the storm updates while my very calm son watched Elmo,
and waited for the storm to hit. My husband, whom I have often asked if he even
has a window in his office, so rarely does he notice what happens outside it,
even texted me to comment on how dark it was and warn me to keep my phone
charged. Do you want to know what happened next?
A thunderstorm passed by. It rained, for a little bit. It
hailed teeny tiny drops of ice for a teeny tiny amount of time. A few trees
swayed and some leaves and maybe a few small branches fell off them. The
streets got wet. It was a little loud and a little bright out. Then the storm
passed, the sun actually came out and all was right with the world. It was not Armageddon.
It wasn't even the Michael Bay version. It was just a thunderstorm. But wait!
More storms were to come! And they would be louder, and wetter, and messier,
and oh, humph, I guess they went to our south because all we got was some rain.
Hmm. So much for Thunder Thursday.
Seriously, if the weather people are going to hit DefCon 4
every single time the radar lights up, it is going to be a very, very long
summer. While I just made up the phrase Thunder Thursday, I am positive some
dim-witted weather guy contemplated using it. We now get named snow storms
(which again, almost never, ever hit expected snow total within six inches in
either direction), as if anyone is going to start talking about the days when
Snowstorm Stupidhead hit. People remember snowstorms in terms of what they
cancelled. The storm that cancelled the Christmas concerts, or the ones that
messed up a weekend away, or that one that closed school the day of the big
test. We don't need a name for it, we already gave it a memory. Hurricanes
deserve names because hurricanes fuck shit up in such a massive way, you need
to be definitive about it. Sandy destroyed the shore. Katrina destroyed New
Orleans. It puts a succinct name to a succinct action. But snowstorms? Pshaw.
I don't think being a meteorologist is easy. However, I
think that the current Chicken Little method of prediction has got to go. When
I was growing up, you checked the sky for storms. Last year, at my local pool,
we were all playing bingo happily and rather loudly on a sunny, warm night. The
pool is completely enclosed in a glen of trees, so visibility isn't great in
terms of approaching storms, but the wind was calm and quiet. Within minutes,
the wind started whipping, the temperature started dropping, and my daughter
started crying. We all gathered our stuff and immediately headed out of the
door. Once past the parking lot and overlooking an open field, we got our first
glimpse of a monster storm. My family made it safely indoors. We didn't have
three days warning. While my weather app had told me storms were possible,
there wasn't a single phone at the pool that issued an alert about upcoming
weather. We all just used our eyes and basic common sense and got the hell out
of there. Isn't that all you can really do for a thunderstorm? Do we need days
upon days of hand-wringing over the fact that winter is coming? Does it really require
capital letters and a house crest?
So, the next time a storm approaches and passes with nary a
drop of rain, or another snowstorm hits with no accumulation, or you are stuck
in extra layers of clothing, join me in raising throwing the rope over a tree
limb. I'm not saying they have to be right all of the time, but more right than
wrong would be a great start.
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