Weathermen are terrible people

Look out! This tornado is coming straight for your house!

Since I’ve lived my entire life in the Midwest, tornadoes and severe weather are a little mundane for me. I’ve successfully survived hundreds of tornado warnings, several close brushes with storms that destroyed nearby towns (Galva, Illinois — about 25 miles from Galesburg — seems to get hit with a tornado at least twice a year) and ignored approximately 77,000 tornado watches.

I’ll admit that this sort of familiarity breeds a laissez-faire attitude toward a violent storm that can swoop down from the sky and rip your face from your head with 200-mph winds. But it seems like the Illinois news stations always offered a reasonable view of events. When there was a tornado in the area, I’d hear reports on television or radio that sounded something like: “A tornado has been spotted in northern Knox County. If you are in this area, please seek shelter. Other areas, remain watchful of future developments.”

Then I moved to Kansas.

Weathermen here in the Kansas City area are the single most sensationalist segment of people I’ve ever encountered.

This summer alone, I’ve heard enough breathless proclamations of impending doom to last a lifetime. Each time a storm rolls into the area, these strange creatures are roused from their Doppler cages, shoved in front of a camera and told to tell everyone in the viewing area that, yes, they are about to die.

Worst of all, a severe storm warning once prompted a 90-minute break in television coverage on a Thursday night that prevented me from seeing The Office.

Here are my favorite weather-report excerpts from the summer storm season:

[Scene 1: Tornado warning in the area, weather woman is talking via satellite to a reporter out in a storm-chasing vehicle]
Weather woman: Lisa, can you tell us where you are?
Reporter: [muffled] I am out in Shawnee. It’s very dark and raining very hard.
Weather woman: You say it’s raining very hard?
Reporter: Yes, it’s raining very hard. I’m going to put my microphone up to the car window so you can hear the rain.
[We hear rain hitting the car window, which sounds exactly like you think it does]
Weather woman: All right then. Thank you.

[Scene 2: A weather man says that a tornado has touched down near Kansas City. By "near Kansas City," he means Horton, Kansas, which is 74.9 miles away from Kansas City]
Weather man: OK, keep in mind that there is a tornado in the area, people. That means stay in your homes, stay away from windows, and stay in your basement or in an interior room. We will have all the updates here, so keep it tuned. We’re now going to go to a live aerial report from [some guy]. What do you see out there?
[Some guy]: Well, it looks like the skies have cleared quite a bit here. Things are definitely looking better, but there are still pretty heavy rains.
Weather man: [pauses, listens to earpiece] OK, well, we have received word that the tornado warning has been lifted, and a flash flood warning is instead in effect. But keep in mind that flash floods actually kill more people than tornadoes every year.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned!

Or else.

Tags: local news, sensationalism, storms, weather