Sunday, January 27, 2008

"Torrential Rain, Thunderstorms and Mudslides... Details on the 11 o'clock News!"

I don't know about the network newscasters in your area, but here in the Los Angeles market we're held hostage by reporters and weathermen who are, I believe, frustrated actors who never got that plum soap opera role that rocketed them to sitcom stardom. So they fill their soundbytes and teaser commercials with all sorts of hyperbole so that we're sure to watch the late night news lest we end up being swept into oblivion by Mother Nature.

That was the scenario once again on Saturday evening. We were given dramatic, dire predictions of doom and gloom. Being a vigilant (okay, neurotic) horseowner,I stockpiled stall bedding and feed. I played that undeniably fun game of "put the waterproof blankets on the horses/take the waterproof blankets off the horses." Then, in fear that Wally and Lexi would be sequestered in their pens for a couple of days while they endured the oncoming series of storms, I decided to exercise them both. I took Wally on a lengthy trail ride and left Lexi turned out all day so she could rip around the big paddock with glee.

I even cancelled plans to take my lesson kids to a schooling show on Sunday. I knew they were disappointed, because it was merely partly cloudy when I called them on Saturday night, but how could the weather reports be wrong?

Once I'd battened down the hatches, and Wally and Lexi were snug as bugs in rugs (waterproof rugs, mind you), I went to sleep, figuring when I awoke my horse property would be awash in runoff rainwater.

It wasn't.

I don't want to give you the impression that it didn't rain. It did. But we did not get anywhere near the apocalyptic weather that was given top billing as part of Storm Watch: 2008.

Of course, you know what will happen. Next time the Giganto Doppler Deluxe Rain-o-Meter and its human counterpart, Thor Sterling, predict a deluge, I'll ignore them and blissfully continue with my regular schedule.

And then it'll pour.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

AMEN, CINDY!
It must be the lastest thing the school of weathermen are teaching...how to scare the beejeezers out of their viewers!
I don't know how many times I have planned my future around their erroneous forecasts, only to be disappointed one way or the other.
I finally found one channel where he "tells it like it is" without all the hoopla. Most of the time he is right. I am getting pretty good at reading between the lines, but you were right to cancel the schooling show plans. What a disaster that could have been!

Anonymous said...

That's might be the reason they say 50/50 chance. That way they're right one way or the other. I also think that the ppl at the weather stations take bets. Not on the weather, but if the weather was predicted right, or if the weather person was off or not.

Anonymous said...

I think the easy thing to do is check the weather yourself. I found this site that is so great.

http://www.weather.gov/

Cindy Hale said...

It seems like we're all held hostage by TV weathermen! I do check the online national weather services, but it is true that the only really reliable way of judging the weather is to look out the window.

By the way, it really, really, REALLY rained last night. So I guess the weatherman was right... he was just 24 hours off.

And the schooling show was cancelled anyway (maybe the show manager was listening to the same TV newscast), so my lesson kids would've arrived to an empty parking lot. So I made a good call on that decision!