Sunday, February 27, 2005

Predicting the Weather

The weathermen are hedging their bets today. They claim that a large storm front could hit this area sometime tomorrow, and dump considerable snow over the following 24 hours. But they conditionalize their statements with ‘maybe’ and ‘depending’ and ‘prevailing winds’ and ‘gee, we don’t wanna seem dumb this time…’ One local weatherman predicted 12-18 inches two weeks ago, and we shoveled about 4. So we do not yet have weather maps in three different colors, each signifying snowfall totals for three states above the New York City line.

Maybe we have seen the end of an era: the use of the weather segment as a way to hype the news ratings. Then again, maybe it’s because tomorrow is the last day of sweeps month, and the storm is hitting on the first day of the next month….Silly theory. This is winter, it snows in winter in upstate New York, and it’s cold. That’s all we need to know. The plows will take care of the rest.

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