Now I know some of the local weathermen and women a little. Vince Sweeney shops at my supermarket and is always gracious and nice. I met Noreen Clark at a charity event once and she was interesting to talk with. I have been on the morning weather a few times with Joe Snedeker and he is a great guy.
All these folks work hard, do their jobs with care and consideration and not one of them would ever want to be the source of panic.
So…who dunnit?
Some weather forecaster some place on some channel made this weekends snow seem like the storm of the century.
The first I heard of it was Thursday. The rumor was a foot or more would be coming Saturday. This spread like wildfire. I started to watch the forecasts and couldn’t find anyone who was predicting more than 4 inches. But they were also hedging a bit in that forecaster sort of way. Making noises about storm tracks and upper air disturbances and what not.
But the damage had been done. The mere fact that someone THOUGHT that there would be a foot of snow turned everybody into prognosticator Pete or Pat.
Everywhere I went over the weekend it was the sole topic of conversation. Do you think we’ll get it? When will it start? Should I get bread and milk?
Speaking of that: the stop we made at the market was a great example of storm surge in a grocery store. It was bright and sunny out the window but people were stacked five deep at the checkout.
It sort of came to a peak when we were out for lunch and in the lobby area of the restaurant the TV monitors were tuned to the weather channel.
A crowd of people turned and stared like it was a car wreck.
A woman I spoke to who was wearing what looked like artic quality fur boots was heading back to Philadelphia. “We are supposed to get a foot†she said.
Maybe she was the culprit!
So I got up early Sunday and used the broom on the storm of the century.
Of course if the upper air had more disturbed it all could have had a very different ending.
