Hurricane ? Chris - fizzled Chris

Watching our TV weather people here has been really funny, especially last night and this morning. They were forecasting Chris to become a category three hurricane and hit the Texas coast. Every wobble that happened they would claim it would be more over open, hot waters. It would intensify and be a hurricane by today. Then, gasp, it would move into the Gulf, where the waters are really hot.

And then, yesterday, it began to weaken. That was explained that it was too close to land, and it certainly was going to be over the open waters of the Gulf, and need I say more?

Then this morning they had to report that Chris was just a depression. A mere depression!! Oh the weeping of the weather people. All their hopes and dreams are almost dashed. My favorite one on the early morning news said that the Gulf coast MIGHT be hit by a tropical depression, and we should be aware of it. He wasn't a doom sayer. He didn't talk about the hot tropical waters that would cause intensification. He just stated the obvious. There could be a depression in the Gulf.

Now don't get me wrong. They can be very slow moving, and they can move then back up. They can hold lots of rain. Flooding can happen. They can are and are very destructive. I personally am not into flooding.

In this morning's paper, one of the articles on the front page was talking about the waters in the Atlantic being three degrees lower than last year, and there should be a decrease in named storms. Further in the paper, the local forecasters defended themselves stating they wanted people to be aware of what's out there. They defended the hourly updates and all the hype. They want the citizenry to be prepared - for the worst. After last year, anyone who doesn't have supplies is really dumb.

So, as of now, we won't have our news teams outfitted in raincoats with umbrellas standing in ninety mile an hour gusts with the rain pelting them like nails telling us we should not be out in that weather. It is possible that they may be out in raincoats, hip boots and umbrellas standing in thigh deep water with the snakes and fire ants telling us not to wade in thigh deep water.