Weather Alert!

I woke up yesterday and as I usually do, I turned on the tv to check on the news etc. On the bottom of the screen was the scroll of late openings, early dismissals and closings. Many schools were letting out early and bingo at Saint John's church of the Holy Ghost was canceled. I thought it must be a big storm heading our way if bingo is canceled! I turned on the weather and the storm even had a name, Luna. They said that storm Luna was going to hit around noon and we could expect 1 or 2 inches of snow! Now, since when did every storm, no matter how big or small, get a name? Storms like the blizzard of '78 or last year's storm at the end of October deserve a name, not a one inch snowfall. I continued to watch the tv about "storm Luna". They were recommending to stay off the roads later because it was going to get slippery. Yep, that usually happens when it snows. And you'd better go get some bread and milk in case the stores are closed for days on end. Now I didn't need any but you can never have enough of bread and milk. As the storm came in, the weather guys really start getting excited. Turning on the news in the afternoon, the lead story is of course the weather. But the weather is always the lead story now. There could be a major event that will affect our lives but let's check on the weather first. They bring up their "triple doppler" radar to show us exactly where it's snowing. And then they bring up the temperatures for everywhere in the state, which are usually the same. And finally they bring up "futurecast" which is a computer's best guess of what's going to happen in the next few hours. Yep, it's going to snow and then it's going to stop. And there's always the "hour" by hour" forecast in case you missed something in the past 5 minutes. Then we finally get to the news, which is "team coverage" of the storm. You have reporter 1 with a ruler, showing that yes, there's an inch of snow on the ground. Then there's reporter 2 standing by some road, showing how traffic is going really slow. And you might even have reporter 3 showing the plows ready to go out to tackle "storm Luna". Give me a break! When did we get so soft! I'll leave it at that for now. But first, let's go back to our "minute by minute" forecast.

How cold is it?

Yes, it has been cold the past few days around here. It even "gasp!" was below zero at night. But guess what? This is New England and this is the middle of winter. It's supposed to be cold. But if you watch the news on tv, you'd think it's a national disaster. It's been the lead or second story of every newscast. Picture of frozen fountains, frozen lakes, people working in the cold and more. But what about the ice fishermen (and women)? They don't seem to mind the cold. And I don't see the ski slopes empty because of the cold. We need a few cold days. So toughen up, and throw another log on the fire. And I don't want to hear "how hot is it?" come July.