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Born and raised here in New England, I have seen my fair share of snow storms. In fact, I have seen lots of them. From the great Blizzard of 78 to last year's record breaking Blizzard, this is the time of year that dumps lots of nasty snow in our region. So why does it always surprise us when snow is in the forecast?
Hearty New Englanders, you'd think we would be conditioned for all of this. So when they forecast 6-10" of snow yesterday, we were ready. The weather people had warned of a January Nor'Easter with high accumulations. The snow was predicted to start late in the afternoon and go heavy into the wee hours of the night. Another nasty evening commute with a tough morning one to follow. There was even a blizzard warning in effect for the southern part of the state with high winds and 18-24" predicted.
So it began about 4pm and as promised, the evening commute was not particularly pleasant. As the snow continued I watched as a measly inch to two piled up on top of last Saturday's surprise 4" already on the ground. The snow continued throughout the evening but every time I looked outside I saw nothing much amounting. Nothing much for a native to these parts. When I woke this morning I found the same story. In total we got about 4" which by now totals up to a "dusting" . It was not what the forecasters had warned/promised. Yet again....
This is the second time this month we had had a storm that didn't live up to the hype.
Oh yes-the southern part of the state got smacked. Some towns reported getting 18"and word has it it was still snowing and blowing at 8am this morning, but here closer to the city? A whole lotta nothing.
It makes me laugh. Why all the hype? I guess it's better to be over on the snow predictions than under if that's what you do for a living, but around here it's like get it right or go home!! For goodness sake, this place was in a complete tizzy about 2pm yesterday. I'm sure all the show shovels and ice melt were sold out, which is a usual occurrence when big snow is predicted, but this morning we probably feel like idiots who got duped by a cheesy door to door salesman. With all the Doppler radar aps out there for our tablet devices, becoming a weather watcher has become a seasonal pastime. How did we not see it?
It's a simple case of the boy who cried wolf. I'm not buying it next time. Unless there is a state of emergency declared and a driving ban or "shelter in place" order issued, I'm not going to panic.
After all, what another 6-10" inches to a native New Englander?
4 comments:
I remember disappointment as a kid when it was supposed to really snow good and it didn't...
"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is going to get them in trouble. People are going to stop believing them, and then they are going to under estimate one, and people are going to get caught, and it's going to be dangerous.
Happened here a few winters ago. The storm played out EXACTLY as they had been predicting for a week. Like down to the hour. And they'd warned people to stay off of Lake Shore Drive (LSD) in the evening commute. People ignored them, and then when 100's got stuck, they cried that the city should have closed the drive to save them from themselves. And they made it sound like they were in the Donner Party. At most, they were a 300 yard walk across a park to the most affluent area of the city.
I honestly think that this is my calling. To be a Weather guy on the news. First off, because I would love to get paid to be wrong 50% of the time. Could you see me now? "He-He, I totally fucked up that forecast. Hello Mulah!"
TWO WORDS hurricane Sandy.
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