Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Hyping the Weather





Monster Storm headed our way!  How will that affect your weekend plans?  Tune in at 5pm and find out the details with our Accurate 7 weather team. 

We’ve all seen those kinds of headlines and commercials warning us about the next “frankenstorm” or “snowpocalypse”.  It almost seems like we have the “storm of the century” about every other year.  We’ve gotten to the point where an 85 degree summer day is a “major heat wave that could affect millions of people” and governments have to open up “cooling centers” to save the lives of those unfortunate citizens who can’t afford air conditioning.


Granted, weather can be a killer and is responsible for a lot of people dying.  Yes, people should be warned about the potential dangers of weather extremes.  Many weather outlets don’t just stick to that.  They resort to weather hype to try and get you to watch their coverage of the weather. With often over the top catchy headlines and teasers, they hope to draw you in to their particular coverage.  It’s really all about the money.  They increase the ratings, and they can increase the revenue.


It is not just weather reporting that does this either.  Weather science has become a big business as well.  It seems that whoever can come up with the largest and scariest end time scenario about how we will be destroyed by weather, usually to due to how we have changed it, gets the most grant money from governments and private entities.  Man-made global warming has created an elitist class of scientists who get rich off that tax payers of the world.  Again, it is all about the money.


Lets not forget about the internet either.  The internet is full of “storm chase” and “forecast” groups that often consist of college students or recent grads who are a bunch of adrenaline junkies.  They are able to turn a harmless tornado going through an empty corn field into a life and death struggle as they compete with each other by the hundreds on who can get the closest without getting killed.  After seeing this mayhem first hand, I predicted someone would get killed soon.  This was one where I hated being right.  Again, this becomes all about the money as they get sponsorships, shows, interview spots on the news, speaking engagements, and other ways to fund the hype.



Even the government gets in on the hype.  Over the past several years there have been changes in the wordings of various types of warnings, and an increase in the types of warnings given to the public concerning weather.  These changes were put in “to make people more aware of the possible dangers associated with the weather alerts”.  In other words, they hyped up the warnings in the hopes of increasing their ratings (or the number of people who pay attention).


Don’t get me wrong.  There are very good folks out there doing quite legitimate work in all of the weather fields.  I am not trying to diminish them in any way.  What I am saying though is that there are a good number of entities out there from individuals to science to corporations where the accuracy is of a little less importance as is the all mighty dollar.  This is why the reporters are sent out city wide to report on the “big snowstorm” that only drops like 2 inches of snow. 



The effect of all this hype and one upsmanship on the public is much like in the story of the boy who cried wolf.  The public, by in large, becomes apathetic to all the hyper-warnings and then tends to ignore it when something actually serious is coming their way.  Rather than getting them to properly prepare for bad weather events, the average citizen will tend to dismiss the “hype” and not prepare. 



I don’t think there is any fix to this.  As long as there is money out there to be procured, there will always be those who will go over the top in an effort to get it for themselves.  In the end, we ourselves have to take responsibility to be properly informed, understand the true nature of risks in the weather, and be able to ignore the hype.  My mom used to have pens that had a phrase on them that would be appropriate concerning weather and hype, prepare for the worst, hope for the best, live for today. 

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