A quick question, please. Why does each local TV newscast have almost five minutes of weather? I’m not talking about those days when a big snowstorm is about to hit. I’m talking about a typical weather day. Who makes the decision to beat mediocre weather into the ground each night, and why?
I’ve discussed this with quite a few people I respect and no one knows. Is it because of the stiff price the station has paid for all those expensive machines that generate the fancy weather graphics? Is it because weather people are usually such wholesome-looking people (translated: a bit too wholesome)? Are they trying to encourage us to be squeaky clean like that? I can’t be that person, damn it.
Here’s what I want. For those increasingly rare times when I can tolerate the local new-less newscast, all I want from the weather segment is the five-day forecast, something that can be accomplished in ten seconds:
Tonight: low in the 40’s and dry. Tomorrow: low of 45, rainy, temp rising to 55. The next three days – fair weather, temp gradually warming into the 60’s.
There. I know what to expect. I’m quite happy, even if it’s not exactly on target. When they get it wrong, it’s rarely terribly wrong and it really doesn’t matter anyway. The weather will be what it will be. They aren’t creating the weather, only guessing about it. I’ve been through this drill about a million times. Because most of us aren’t farmers anymore, we really won’t lose sleep worrying about inaccurate weather.
But that weather person isn’t happy until we know all the weather. For instance, she’ll be offended unless we let her spend 60 seconds reading the current temperature in each of a dozen nearby towns, even though they are all within five degrees of each other. Some things are better in person, of course, but I can’t imagine buying a ticket to hear a live reading of current temperatures by a properly dressed happy person.
But there’s more. She’ll need to pull out the graphics with those crests and troughs, explaining the technicalities in great detail to an oblivious lay audience, oblivious because it is high on potato chips.
Perhaps all of this extra energy is self-defeatist. Perhaps these meteorologists spend such time on the technicalities just to let us know that it is difficult to be a weather forecaster. So difficult that, maybe, we’ll forgive them when they’re wrong if we are constantly reminded how difficult it is. But I’d forgive them for imperfect weather even without such long forecasts. I know that weather is mathematically chaotic. It’s a complex adaptive system. I know about the long-term effect of a butterfly flapping its wings in Rio. I forgive you, I forgive you. Now let’s move on! But they won’t . . .
We don’t need to know that rainfall did not set any records last month. Why do they do this to us? Is this the five-minute weather lull where the station is pumping in subliminal commercial messages? What is she saying now? That this summer it is expected to be “a bit warmer than usual”? Someone, please help me to understand.
There. My five minutes are up. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
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