Thursday, January 19, 2012

Reading Between The Lines

(Today's word will be in ALL CAPS, BOLD, ITALIC, and STRIKETHROUGH.)

Right up front I'll say this, weather people do tend to get a bad rap over all. I don't think there's anyone who hasn't heard, or made, a joke about how weather people can still have jobs when they're wrong a lot of the time.

To be fair though, even with the best tools and equipment, those reporting the weather are still at the mercy of Mother Nature.

Over the years, I've learned to read between the lines when it comes to weather reports.

If it's a run of the mill, average weather report for whatever time of year it is, then it's probably going to be exactly that.

However, if the weather becomes the top story of the news, and a majority of the broadcast is dedicated to the subject, it's probably NOT going to happen. This is especially true if stations stay on the air with continuous reports, when the actual news broadcast is over.

Doesn't matter if it's extremely warm weather, cold, windy, or what, if there's a big hoopla about it in the media, it's more than likely going to fizzle out and be nothing.

On the other hand, when forecasters say there might be a chance of some type of extreme weather, (again, warm, cold, windy, etc.), but it's just a slight chance, and not a big deal, it's time to hunker down and take cover!

Such was the case with the snow here this past week. At first the stations were making a big deal about it; then it looked as though it wasn't going to happen after all. When it looked to be quieting down is when the snow hit.

Predictions were then made that there would be a slight chance of more snow before the weather switched over to rain. This was to happen probably between 1am and 7am yesterday, (Wednesday, January 18, 2012). It was a small window of time and each station said there wouldn't be too much, if any snow accumulation, during that time. Guess what? Yeah, it started snowing heavily around 9pm Tuesday night, and continued until at least 4 Wednesday morning.

It's switched over to rain now, however the snow isn't clearing out very fast at all where I live. Other places, yes, just not here at 1100' in Washington.

Hopefully the weather will just be normal for a bit, and the weather people can have a break, and so can the rest of the area.

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