Todays weather: You're fu#@ed!

The weather forecast has been notorious for being off the mark for years. The Doppler 7000 is a better can opener than a forecaster or the weatherman simply can’t read. The most accurate weatherman I have even watched was Scott Stevens, part of the crew on an Albany New York, NBC affiliate, channel. After about 3 months of great weather forecasting Scott was fired. Apparently he did not complete weatherman school and was therefore not eligible to actually report the weather. So much for that.

We all know the weather forecasts suck so this rant is about a new trend that has been developing over the last few years. Because the weather has increasing become the least tragic thing the news reports, and that’s arguable with this year’s hurricane season, the networks feel it is necessary to drag the weather out across the entire news broadcast.

It begins with some hints of the weather for the upcoming days. They even show the weather person and they speak about the possible conditions coming our way. They are careful not to give away any “real” info, positive or negative. Is this cliffhanger supposed to entice us to stay tuned? After commercial they come back and show a few tragedy stories. Kid falls out the window, 2 men shot in a bar brawl, truck explodes on the I-95, the typical stuff. Then comes the weather.

“OK, Here we go. Do I need an umbrella for tomorrow?”

The weather person then comes on and spends 5 minutes explaining the current conditions and the conditions we experienced during the day. The high, the low, all the records of the past, any we broke and any we almost broke. Then they cut to commercial with a stay tuned for the complete forecast later in the broadcast. That complete forecast usually comes 2 more commercials later after 2 more teases from the weatherperson.

We do not need to know what the past days conditions were. We lived it. We do not need to know the current conditions are. We can look out a window. What we DO need to know is “WHAT WILL TOMORROW BE LIKE?”! That is all that really matters. The day after tomorrow doesn’t really matter. Its nice to know what the rest of the week will be like, but they are probably dead wrong about the forecast anyway. We need to take the weather one day at a time. For all our sakes can they please stop with all the bullshit and just tell us what the temp and sky will be like for the next day. This should take less than 1 minute, but they drag it out to 10 minutes over the coarse of a 30-minute broadcast.

I say F’em. Dress in layers and carry an umbrella in your bag. Done.