The bullseye....

The first significant winter storm of the season is upon us. Of course nobody can agree on how much snow we're getting, or when it will start. Or even if we're going to get snow at all. It could be sleet. Or freezing rain. (What's the difference between sleet and freezing rain? I have no idea.) It could be ALL rain. Some are saying it's a Nor'easter. Others are not using that term. But then again it could be a bomb cyclone, or a bomb genesis, both of which sound really bad. I don't remember the "bomb" terms growing up, but they are quite in vogue now. So far this week I've heard we could get 1-3 inches, or that we could get over a foot. We might get soaked, or wake up entombed in ice. And, per usual, the “higher elevations” are fucked.

Keep in mind we're in December. It's Pennsylvania. Snow this time of year is not unusual. But just like during the summer, when every rumble of thunder brings predictions of of violent doom and the imminent evacuation of Wilkes-Barre, we seem incapable of handling a snow event without turning it into armageddon. As with most things, I blame the internet.

Have you seen these "weather pages" on Facebook? I won't name names....but there are scores of them out for our area alone. Some with very official sounding names. Some of these guys (and they are always guys, girls don’t have this kind of free time) claim to be credentialed in some way. Most don't bother and simply dive right in with predictions that instantly cause panic among their followers, which I suspect is the point. The crazier the talk, the more traffic it brings in. A few of the pages solicit subscribers for a monthly fee, promising “premium” content. They all feature interminably long forecast videos in the run up to storms, with talk of various models and ominous looking screen grabs of indecipherable graphics. They invariably shit on this or that forecast model, which never align. The "European" model gets the most love, except when it predicts the least amounts. Then it becomes totally unreliable. The end result is always the same. NEPA is the "bullseye" and we’re all gonna die.

This is the “when you are a hammer everything looks like a nail” principle in action.

Some of these guys have been at it for years, and have built up quite an online following. Comment sections have a "Lord of the Flies" flavor to them, with a recognized and respected hierarchy. "Top fans" are given a wider berth, and doubters and naysayers roundly mocked as weather rubes who can't handle the truth.

Though none of these guys agree with each other (one of the most entertaining things about the pages is how they routinely mock each other), the one thing they DO agree on is that the "official" meteorologists at our local television stations are all incompetent boobs. The TV guys are all just corporate shills, playing down the chaos, and thus TRYING TO LULL YOU OUT ONTO THE ROADS TO GET YOU KILLED….or something. The motive is never quite explained but whatever. When a follower brings up that the TV stations are calling for 2 inches and not 9 feet.....these guys get all super cool and are like "hey, I can't speak to why they would do that...."

There's always a sly disclaimer though. You might have to dig deep into the slew of posts, but they'll always pull back at the last minute with something like "I did say that north of route 80 might get less", or that a specific person was “right on the line”, or suggesting that their doomsday scenarios are simply so that we can be "prepared" for the worst.

Because they care and Snedeker doesn't. Or something.

What you will never ever find is any of these guys coming out and saying "wow, I really screwed the pooch on that one." There's always an excuse. And when there isn't one there is radio silence. Until the next time.

Most of the time the National Weather Service gets it right. The world certainly doesn't need Billy, who works at Auto-Zone and comes home, slams a few Natty Ice’s, and then shares weather forecasts via Facebook live from his kitchen table.

We also probably don't need local television meteorologists. Not that they haven't put the work and time in to get their degrees and all that. But all they are really doing is relaying the forecasts from the National Weather Service. They might be doing so with a certain amount of flair, but how often, based on their own research, do they actually contradict what the National Weather Service is saying? That is, how often is their work not done by somebody else?

It’s like a newspaper reporter taking a story off the wire and reporting it as their own.

I'm frequently snarky but in this case I don't mean to be because our meteorologists seem very smart and could probably WORK for the National Weather Service and make it better. It just seems a very very strange job. I mean….if the guy calls off sick does the station say….”OH SHIT, NOW WHAT DO WE DO?”

Well, no. They pull up Weather.gov

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In a bit…

—tf