As promised, we use this space to climb up on a soap box and vent. This time we take on weather forecasters–an easy target–but not for the reasons you may think. Here goes…
- Every forecaster has his/her own style BUT, WE GET TIRED OF HEARING “OUT THERE” EVERY OTHER WORD. Of course, we’re talking about outside weather. One of the ladies (I’m not picking on ladies because all weather people do this) said 18 times in her three minute update “Out There”. Ugh!!!!!
- The weather people on one of our local stations touts themselves as having been judged “the most accurate for 13 straight years”. Of course they are because the forecasters predict and then they say “But I can’t rule out a shower” or “you might see a snowflake” or “clouds may roll in”. In other words, if you predict almost EVERYTHING, you’re gonna be right almost all the time. But your forecast is useless because we still don’t know what you really think will happen.
- If we hear “more mild” one more time we’re going to ask that the station teach third grade English during commercials. There is no excuse for professional announcers to screw up “milder”.
- Have you noticed how the words the forecaster tells us do not agree with the map he/she is showing us? Example: when rain is predicted but the map shows the rain nearly 100 miles south and going away from our locale, why is the forecaster talking about rain in our area? People sometimes change plans based on the weather predictions…get specific.
- Weather people are notorious for wanting attention. Apparently the only growing up experience they shared is that Mom and Dad didn’t notice them enough. So now as weather people they have your full attention and they abuse it by predicting the worst possible conditions they can imagine. Example: when the temp isn’t really that cold–they talk “wind chill”. When a 20 MPH wind is possible they predict “gusts could reach 35 MPH”. When the next few days are sunny and warm they focus on the rain that might happen next week. They MUST get your attention somehow.
- And finally, when they are completely wrong, why are they not secure enough to admit their mistake and explain what changed? Ten words or less on a 100% error would endear them to their viewers because we’d see that they don’t just ignore mistakes–they learn from them and maybe next time they’ll get it right.
Comments are closed