What Changed?

[ATeam]

News organizations have been talking for two days about the "massive winter storm" that is "barreling" toward Washington DC and other Northeast cities; a storm that is "potentially crippling."

When I recall my childhood years in Wisconsin and early adult years in Minnesota, I don't recall that kind of reporting two days ahead of the event. We were aware that a big storm MIGHT be coming but not with the sense of panic that seems to prevail today.

When Diane and I were on the road as expediters, we never turned down a load because the weather might be bad where we were going. We'd drive into the foretasted blizzards, knowing that if things got truly bad, we'd drive slow and safe, and/or hunker down in our survival-pod truck and wait it out. But, more often than not, conditions were not as bad as the news people said they would be, or it happened that the particular area we went to was not as badly affected in the larger picture they drew.

Is my observation accurate? Are news organizations going nuts about POTENTIALLY bad weather in ways they did not do before? If so, what has changed in them, society and government (close schools, issue dire warnings, hold press conferences, etc.) to cause this shift?

 

[Treadmill]

News organizations have been talking for two days about the "massive winter storm" that is "barreling" toward Washington DC and other Northeast cities; a storm that is "potentially crippling."

When I recall my childhood years in Wisconsin and early adult years in Minnesota, I don't recall that kind of reporting two days ahead of the event. We were aware that a big storm MIGHT be coming but not with the sense of panic that seems to prevail today.

When Diane and I were on the road as expediters, we never turned down a load because the weather might be bad where we were going. We'd drive into the foretasted blizzards, knowing that if things got truly bad, we'd drive slow and safe, and/or hunker down in our survival-pod truck and wait it out. But, more often than not, conditions were not as bad as the news people said they would be, or it happened that the particular area we went to was not as badly affected in the larger picture they drew.

Is my observation accurate? Are news organizations going nuts about POTENTIALLY bad weather in ways they did not do before? If so, what has changed in them, society and government (close schools, issue dire warnings, hold press conferences, etc.) to cause this shift?

They seem to cry wolf too early and too often these days.

 

[Ragman]

Your observation is very accurate.

The chicken little way the weather is presented nowadays is just amazing.

 

[xiggi]

When we were young there was 3 channels and only an hour or so of national news. Now it 24/7 with numerous outlets competing for veiwer9.

 

[Noname]

The need for covering news time leads to over coverage. However, there is a duty to keep the public informed, so it's a balancing act. Here in Florida we get days of coverage on every "maybe" hurricane until public starts ignoring it. Hard to get too worried over storm when newscaster is reporting dire warnings at the ocean while people in the background are strolling the beach and surfing in the waves. But we get sucker punched once in a while too.

 

[hedgehog]

Ateam wondered in mesage Nol 1: "Is my observation accurate? Are news organizations going nuts about POTENTIALLY bad weather in ways they did not do before?"

The answer is very simple.

MONEY !!!!!

The competition for your dollar is very fierce. Soo many media outlets and just so many viewers/listeners/readers to attract and hold onto.

If they can scare you into paying attention to their "storm" that translates into advertising dollars.

Before I retired and became a "paid tourist" my real job was working at Cleveland's largest newspaper.

IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEEDS !!

 

[Turtle]

If they can scare you into paying attention to their "storm" that translates into advertising dollars.

That's it right there. The Weather Channel now assigns names to winter storms, just like hurricanes. And they're all bad. Really bad. Potentially. There's no such thing as "cold" anymore, it's now "bitter cold." Anything colder than 30 degrees qualifies. Arctic Blasts (isn't that from Dairy Queen?) and Polar Vortexes are plunging the world into a new Ice Age. Well, until summer, then they can't wait to tell us how many thousands of record high we had today around the country.

Part of it is advertising, fueled by the unending stoking of the fear of Global Climate Warming Change, and an entire generation resulting from helicopter parenting.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

And Phil.....back in your day you were making a bit more then $1.00 a mile for your pain...
I remember having to follow a plow across the New York Thruway at times just to get thru...
Now at my age and my monetary condition I don't want nor need the aggrevation, I chose to let it pass me by.....

 

[tknight]

It's a conspiracy of the bread and milk industy!

 

[OntarioVanMan]

It's a conspiracy of the bread and milk industy!

and batteries.....LOL

I've heard 4-6" referred to as They got "hammered" dang thats just a dusting....

 

[kg]

And Phil.....back in your day you were making a bit more then $1.00 a mile for your pain...
I remember having to follow a plow across the New York Thruway at times just to get thru...
Now at my age and my monetary condition I don't want nor need the aggrevation, I chose to let it pass me by.....

Yep this statement rings true for many, with the way the whole industry takes for granted the owner operator in terms of pay and expectations. While most still try to give their best shot on a daily basis,the sense of urgency and sacrifice in adverse weather conditions is greatly diminished.

The entire industry in all respects is drastically changing.

Stay safe, KG

 

[beachbum]

They always do this because it's going to hit the DC NY area. Doesn't matter if it's snow or rain they freak out in the press.

 

[Mailer]

News coverage...
Over coverage? May be.
Money, Competitions? It's a business as usual.

News coverage intended to prevent the loss of lives and infrastructures? Certainly.

In my opinion. Safetywise, over coveraged and over prepared will result in the reduction of the potential fatalities....immensely. Ya, it's a good safety thing. Be safe out there folks!

Photo credit: NASA

 

[uriykir]

But but but... Global warming... Or cooling is it now?

 

[Turtle]

News coverage intended to prevent the loss of lives and infrastructures? Certainly.

Except most often it doesn't. It's a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" scenario, where they over-hype every.little.thing and eventually people get complacent and stop listening. "Oh, great, another hurricane, which will be like the last 17 that missed us completely or turned out to be nothing more than a little wind and rain. Yawn."

Remember Atlanta in January of 2014? They were told what was coming, and they blew it off, because they'd been told too many times that it was gonna be bad, bad, bad, and it wasn't, wasn't, wasn't. 2.5 inches of snow and then freezing rain fell and it crippled them for 3 days. It wasn't like they didn't see Rick Cantore on The Weather Channel freaking out about it for nearly three days while the storm made its way to Atlanta. Then again, Rick Cantore freaks out about everything. Nobody thought to take him seriously this time.

 

[xmudman]

News coverage intended to prevent the loss of lives

And zillion-dollar lawsuits. Imagine if a news station reported a storm like this as no big deal, and some pretty teen died due to lack of preparedness. You'd have tearful news conferences, resignations, new laws named after the victim, the whole nine yards. And the lawyers would come out of the woodwork.

That's why the news channels have to paint every storm as catastrophic

 

[Turtle]

And zillion-dollar lawsuits. Imagine if a news station reported a storm like this as no big deal, and some pretty teen died due to lack of preparedness. You'd have tearful news conferences, resignations, new laws named after the victim, the whole nine yards. And the lawyers would come out of the woodwork.

That's why the news channels have to paint every storm as catastrophic

In order for there to be a successful lawsuit, the news station would have to publicly state that their weather forecasts are accurate, and/or they would have to knowingly broadcast false and misleading forecasts. If the meteorologists at the station knew the storm was going to be bad, but reported it as no big deal, then there might be some liability for deliberately withholding information. Forecasters will not be found liable simply because a forecast is wrong. Courts in the past have recognized that forecasts are fallible and people who rely on such forecasts assume the risk that a particular prediction may not be realized. It is highly unlikely that a forecaster who relies on established professional standards in the issuance of a forecast will be found liable for a poor forecast. No one has so far. Of course, as in always the case in legal matters, history may not be a good predictor to the future, and those future outcomes may deviate wildly from past US case law.

Even so, in the US, at least, scientists would appear to have exceedingly little reason for concern about legal liability for the issuance of forecasts that do not verify. And these are scientists who deal with forecasts with extremely high dollar values, from agriculture to maritime shipping to government policy-making. The local weatherman on Channel 5 has even less to worry about.

 

[geo]

my grand mother did a better job than they do today
if you watch sky at night, have a good ideal of what tomorrow is going to be like
if there is a ring around moon there is a storm coming and for ever star that is in ring that is how many days away the storm is
if there is a dew in morning it's not going to rain after 1700 (99.5) per cent
if no dew in morning chance of rain
if cows are in pasture and some are standing up or laying down partly cloudy
if leaves are turning up rain storm is coming
if wooly worms that are orange in color, in fall if they have one ring (black) mild winter
it they have two rings or more going be hard winter

 

[Unclebob]

When I was growing up they forecast the next day's weather and that was just about it. Even then they weren't very much more than 50% right on their accuracy.

Today with computer modeling they're able to get a much more accurate forecast for the weather than ever before. It's still not perfect but it's definitely better than when I was growing up.

Of course the weather stations and news stations definitely overhype all the weather conditions because that's how they make their money. It's all about being able to look at what they're telling you and make your own decisions.

Sent from my STUDIO6_0HD using Tapatalk

 

[Moot]

When I was growing up we didn't have no guldanged Weather Channel meteorologists with there fancy dopier radar and satellite images. We had Bud Kraehling on CCO and the Northwestern Bank Weather Ball and that was good enough for us and stay the hell off my lawn!

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