Do You Trust the Weatherman?

This has been a banner year for the weatherman, both locally and nationally, as they have finally demonstrated beyond doubt that weather reports are pure hogwash. Even the dumbest amongst us could match the success of the weather reports with a bottle of White Lightning and a dart board.

Ever since the television networks decided to make weathermen or women celebrities the quality of the reports has gone downhill, you might say they washed away with the latest unpredicted rain storm. About all we can really expect from the weatherman is they might know what is going on outside their studio at the time of their report if they take time to look out the window.

American productivity has decreased because of their constant warnings of another hurricane, or tropical storm, floods, high winds, lightning storms or whatever. Once they realized if they sensationalize the weather with dire predictions and warnings they could get more air time with the constant updates. But now these characters have cried wolf so many times their credibility is shot.

Tens of millions of dollars have been spent on satellites, weather stations and computer modeling and the result is a much faster and more graphic way of making mistakes. People are glued to the latest storm warnings when they should be out working or getting the eggs from the chicken pen.

Grocery stores and oil companies should name weathermen heroes since sales spike as a result of the multitude of mistaken warnings. Wrong weather reports mean more to grocery and gasoline sales than the needs of the family blowing the money while waiting in lines.

Lost productivity, line rage, price gouging, increased tension, cancelled outings, closed schools are all the direct result of the miscues from the weatherman. Why doesn’t a weatherman ever say they simply don’t know what is going to happen, or is the truth that hard to bear?

The last reliable weather reports came from George Carlin when he did the “Hippy Dippy Weatherman” routine stoned, because his reports, though they were the same every night in every venue he appeared, were always right. There will be light followed by dark. It may or may not rain.

I say put the satellite picture on the screen and silence the weathermen. Let us decide what the pictures mean since the experts have no idea. When they tell us we are going to have the worst hurricane season ever, land prices drop along the water, gas prices go up for fear of refinery damage, and people live on edge. Weathermen are a major disruptive force in America. Since there were no hurricanes to hit the USA this year it means they were not wrong once but over and over since about eight major storms were supposed to hit.

Make them personally liable for the billions of dollars they cost us in erroneous forecasts. Throw them off the air. Better yet, use them for a lightning rod in a thunderstorm and let them see how it feels messing with the public. But for Pete’s sake do not take them serious. The so called meteorologists with their weather bugs and space age technology should use their heads, not their machines and models, and if they do they will get out of the weather business.