Friday, February 04, 2011

A big let down

It all happened again. The weather people here, once again, got into a frenzy about the great weather event that threatens our very beings - only so have it fizzle leaving with egg on their faces.

So to bolster these sooth-sayers, the stations to broadcast pictures solidly through all the network's programming. And why - because we had a light mist all night, and therefore all bridges and overpasses are slick as, well you can fill that one in.

They had said we would be getting the effects of that low pressure area that was moving from the Pacific coast around noon. What happened then - schools began closing. Now with the information they were given, that was a good call. The evening drive home would be really dangerous. We would be having rain mixed with snow and sleet. Nope.

So rush hours went smooth because about half of the commuters had already left work to pick up their kids. Back to tv. They were still on this old thing of the low still out over New Mexico, but when it came to us - wow, we would be covered with sleet and snow.

Come bedtime. Weather soothsayers said the low pressure was still coming this way. The projected time of midnight would have the low over us, and well, Galveston wasn't going to have three inches of snow after all. But the mainland, well it's not in the projected map area, but we still may have two inches.

In reality, the NASA weather bureau was by far the closest. You could look at the map of what they thought was going to happen in the future, and it was split around us. Do these nuts think we poor citizens are too stupid to read that map? Don't tell me we are going to have 2-3 inches of snow more like about midnight (they were assuming the great unwashed viewers would be in bed, and their forecast still sounded good.)

So comes the morning. Yes we had a bit of ice due to the bit of rain. Yes, driving was a hazard. Bridges and overpasses were covered by a thin coat of ice - most of them closed with some officer sitting there babysitting those ramps.

The television stations had been hyping this storm for a week. Their response was to go live showing the feeds from the road condition cameras around the city, and sending the poor little lambs that are put out in the middle of the mayhem. This time is wasn't much accounting for showing the dumb a**es who went around the blockage of the roads and either crashed, or remained in their card waiting for help.

It was a good thing for most of the school districts to shut down. There goes one of the holidays later in the year. It was a good idea to tell folks to stay home. I will give them that. I won't allow the soothsayers that kept trying to make it snow.

These are the same people who spend all their energies trying to move a hurricane into our area. When you can clearly see the thing will remain in the Atlantic, they show this "zone of uncertainty"to move that storm into the gulf and right up the ship channel to decimate us all. then break away to the poor schlep who is standing out there in front of the camera having tried to find a story that will just knock your socks off. Oh, how they would love to find some story having a brave rescue of a boy and his dog - gotta get the child angle and the animal lovers caught up in the drama. But alas it never happened.

So we are condemned to watch hours and hours of "storm coverage" or escape it all and visit with you guys. Gee thanks to the climate change - we may have the blizzards and all and you in the northers states will have to take the hurricanes - that's a fair exchange!

Peace be with you.

3 comments:

yellowdoggranny said...

you still believe in the weatherman?..bwhahaahhahaha

Marti said...

Our weatherpeople love a good storm too. You can almost see their heads puff up when they get more than the usual 10 minutes on camera.

Judy said...

No hurricanes--please. We have tornadoes and don't need any hurricanes.