Before reading this blog, I would advise any of you who currently work in the field of meteorology or have close relatives who work in that field to just pass on reading the following.  I may not be completely fair in my assessment, but that's one reason this is on a blog.

Oklahoma has just recently been through a series of winter storms that the local meteorologist gave pet names like "ICE STORM 2007" or "WINTER BLAST 2007".  I don't know if it is this way in your home town, but here, it seems that the weather report has become more of an enterprise than a sharing of information.  Maybe it is just Oklahoma, but for some reason I just feel like the weathermen here enjoy listening to themselves enough that they will interrupt the middle of your show to tell you about the possibility of a thunderstorm that evening.  Used to, it was only right before or during a severe storm that they interuppted for a very short update on the situation.  Now, as one of my colleagues put it, the weather was the only thing on for like two days straight. 

Now, I am not trying to say I don't appreciate all the hard work and advanced notice that our meteorologist provide in the case of severe weather, but recently it has just gotten a little out of hand.  You see about a week and a half ago, we had a winter storm that brought about 4 inches of ice/sleet in the OKC metro area.  It stayed cold and the ice stayed on the roads for several days.  School was out, the news talked about it everyday, fine, I can accept that it was a pretty bad storm.  I mean Oklahoma Christian cancelled school for a day, and that hardly ever happens unless a great force like "ICE STORM 2007!" appears on the scene. 

Well, to make a long story short, the meteorologist prepped us pretty much all week for the next storm that was coming our way.  It was scheduled at first to bring 4-6" of snow in the metro, then 2 days before its arrival it was upgraded to a 6-10" possibility.  By the day before, I briefly heard some reports of up to 12" of snow.  We're talking a whole foot, that is a lot of snow for Oklahoma.  People were ready, the shelves at the local supermarket were empty, wood piles were stocked full.  Well, Saturday came and so did about 2-3" of heavy rain.  I admit that I saw it snow for a few seconds, but really it just rained most of the day.  It melted the remainder of the ice lingering on the roads from "ICE STORM 2007!"

I don't really mind that the weathermen got it wrong, I mean you think they would get better at the prediction as the day of it's arrival came closer, but no one is perfect.  What bothers me were the words of one forecaster while justifying the inaccurate prediction.  He said and I quote, "this pesky warm air staying around" is keeping it from snowing and causing it to rain instead of snow.  Truly, his words reflect his whole attitude, not only was he disappointed about the failed prediction, he actually sounded upset that there wasn't a major snow storm pounding the metro area.  Instead, it was just a good ol' fashioned rainy day.  That wasn't really worth interrupting the afternoon movie, but he did anyway. 

Maybe all this doesn't annoy you that much, but here in Oklahoma the weathermen are about to drive me nuts.  I am not the only one who shares these feelings.  I assume they get paid the same whether we have a mega huge storm or not, so my thought is enjoy the good weather, warn us if we are going to be sucked up by a huge tornado, and stay off the air the rest of the time because it's seems to be a waste of time in most cases.  If you are going to come on the air to provide the best prediction you can, don't hype it up with catchy names, leave that to the hurricane forecasters down in Florida.  I only have one thing left to say, in the case of the storm this weekend....

"Rick, said it would" and "it didn't" so there!