“I AIN’T GOT TIME TO DISCUSS THE WEATHER, OR HOW LONG IT’S GONNA LAST…”

2/10/10

As I gaze out the window of my office looking at the few inches of snow (maybe six) in what “might be the world’s winter’s worst storm,” (Chicago Sun-Times, 2/10/10), I am reminded of a perpetual complaint that I, and many, have about how our media cover the weather. It seems that whenever we have more than a light dusting of snow in the forecast, we get reports that sound something like this:

Oh, my God, the worst disaster in human history is about to befall us. Snow, snow, and more snow. If you absolutely must travel, take public transportation, but only if getting to where you’re going is a life and death situation. If that is not the case, please, for the love of God, stay in your home, barricade yourself in the basement, because the big one is coming. Better yet, if you have a relatively painless way to do the job, why not just kill yourself right now and spare yourself the inevitable agony that nature is about to mete out?

Almost invariably, such alarmism is followed by a few inches of snow, easily removable with a shovel. The streets are fine, other than the idiots who, despite having lived in wintry climates their whole lives, seem to have not even the remotest idea of how to maneuver in the white stuff. Such people seem to have the notion that the best way to approach icy pavement is to hit the brake, hard, every twenty feet or so, and to be especially enthusiastic in the use of the brakes when they hit ice patches or when they see someone in a ditch who doubtless ended up in the ditch by hitting his brakes, hard, on an ice patch. Other than clueless drivers (who, mysteriously, seem to have a penchant for big, tough SUVs…hmm), everything is up and operating. Life goes on.

One would think such hysteria is a mere annoyance, or even a source of amusement as we hear the earnest, yet apparently easily excitable, announcers and writers do their best imitation of Herb Morrison, who left us with his immortal account of the Hindenburg disaster for WLS (“Oh, the humanity!”). However, there is more at stake here; based on the breathless accounts of people looking for a story, plans are canceled, business is not done (Note Southwest canceling all its flights out of Midway from 10:00 AM yesterday (Tuesday, 2/9/10) to 10:00 AM today.), and schools are closed or scheduled for late arrival, thus shortening our already short school days and/or years. Further, we have the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” syndrome. Sensible people, like yours truly, after years of being pelted with false alarms of impending doom at the hands of Old Man Winter, simply ignore the reports and go about our business. If it really does get bad one day (I can remember two storms that can be classified as “bad” in my nearly 53 years on the planet, most of which were spent in Chicago or its environs: the “Big One” in ’67 and the Bilandic/Byrne perfect storm of ’79), we will, in all likelihood, be caught flat-footed. We, assuming that the reports of imminent disaster are just so much alarmism, will end up doing things and going places that we ought not, and that could result in genuine disaster.

Note that I am not indicting the meteorological profession. Meteorology is an inexact science at best, and weather people, even the few actual meteorologists assigned to cover the weather can, and routinely do, get it wrong, but that’s understandable. No, this is not a complaint about weather forecasting; it is a complaint about weather reporting. Reporters, whether weather reporters or news reporters, always in search of readership and viewership, routinely take weather reports, even comparatively innocuous weather reports, and blow them way out of proportion, inducing completely unnecessary, indeed dangerous, panic.

The sensible among us yearn for the day when the weather report will come down to something like this:

We’re going to get some snow tomorrow, maybe lots of it. But this is Chicago after all, and it’s winter. It snows here in winter. It also sleets and gets very cold here in winter. So either get out and deal with it or move somewhere else. And, please, don’t drive like a jerk. If you still don’t know how to drive in the winter, either stay home, get someone to give you a ride, or take public transportation if you are one of the relatively few in our area with access to realistic public transportation. Please don’t assume that, because some idiotic commercial that induced you to buy your SUV or other all wheel drive vehicle shows a vehicle much like yours plowing through the snow like an Olympic skier, your vehicle can compensate for your pitiable driving skills. Please don’t go out there and make the roads more dangerous for those of us who know how to handle the weather. Thank you. Enjoy the winter weather; it is one of the joys of living here and, even if you don’t think so, it will make the Spring that much more glorious.

Note that dreaming of such straightforwardness, while it has its flaws, is infinitely more productive than heeding the advice the media dispense regarding winter weather.