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Run For Your Lives Posting Date: Dec 21 2008 2:12AM It starts building a week in advance when a few on-air meteorologist types breeze over the final day of the five-day forecast with a casual wave of a hand (usually in a careless circular motion) and a sentiment like, “And on Friday, we’re probably in for some of the white stuff. But for now, let’s take a look at the next twenty-four hours.” Smiles abound. Optimism reigns. Even the most dour and grim of the weatherpeople are hedging their bets at this point. No reason to cause alarm.
Three days out, the smiles are converted to raised eyebrows. “Looks like Friday could see significant accumulations and if the winds are up the way we expect them to be, driving could be a little treacherous.” Now your local meteorologist is making sure you understand that WE COULD GET SNOW. Their heads shake slowly on-camera to let you know that they mean business. They even start providing weather tips just to show how confident they are in their grim forecast. “If you commute to work, you might want to start planning now for a little extra travel time,” they say, as if commuters are morons who have never made the connection between bad weather and longer-than-usual drive times. “This might be a good weekend to stay home with a little hot chocolate and a good book,” they say as if no one, without the assistance of a weatherman, has decided not to brave the elements when the option existed to remain comfortable and cozy.
Then, two days out, all hell breaks loose. No longer is the weather forecast part of the weather – it has become news. Lead story material. It makes it into the tease for the late news during the commercial break in CSI: Miami. The on-air personalities start taking things up measurable notch. They interact with an almost manic energy as they discuss the swirling image on the weather map. “This system is coming from the south just filled with moist air from the gulf and then it’s going to connect with a high-pressure cold front dropping down from the Arctic.” “Wow, Jim, the Arctic?” “Yes, Carol, these two systems will slam together over Minnesota and turn right towards us.” “So we’re right in the path of the storm, then?” “Friday is going to be a heck of day, Carol. A heck of a day.”
Less than twenty-four hours before the storm, it’s full-on panic. Television stations start making ads based around the number of weather cameras they have. Hardware stores and Canadian Tires become sold out of snow shovels and salt. At the grocery store, there’s a run on everything from canned tuna to bottled water. You can’t find a battery or a candle for sale for miles. People start cancelling events before they even happen and hopeful employees start laying in the Doritos and DVD rentals from Blockbuster in anticipation of the snow day. Edgy school boards send out word that buses are cancelled. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, could a full school board closure be far behind?
What will we do?
And then the snow comes, often starting within minutes of the time predicted by the doom-saying weathermen. As the snow falls in driving curtains of white, it piles up and up and up and at the end of the day … it’s a robust nine centimeters, or about one-third of the predicted accumulation.
Happens all the time and I can’t believe it took me this long, but I just realized why.
You watched every damn weather report for the last three days, didn’t you? You read the newspaper when it predicted “Snowmaggeddon” on page one above the fold. You kept the radio on through breakfast just to hear the next weather report. You and everybody else.
This news just in … Scary news draws attention. Scary news makes for good ratings.
As Charles Foster Kane said in Citizen Kane, “You provide the prose poems. I’ll provide the war.”
It’s a disaster, a catastrophe, a cataclysm … it’s Snowmaggeddon if the media say it is.
And now that my driveway is clear and my humble street ploughed, I’m beginning to wonder, is the economy really that bad?
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