Weather or Not

It’s amazing to watch the weather, especially times like last week, when there were tornado warnings and watches, threats of severe thunderstorms with hail, and flood warnings. When the weather is clear and calm, it’s just so boring. The excitement of hearing the rolling, cracking thunder and watching the bright flashes of lightning, hearing the tip-tapping and sometimes pounding of rain and hail on a metal roof is just a natural phenomenon that can’t be beat.

There are weather fans everywhere, and I’m one of them. You can watch the radar on the TV and see a storm moving towards your home or wherever you happen to be, but the direction can change, and the storm can fizzle out with no reason known to the observer. It is similar to watching a movie - you don’t know the ending until it happens.

With the horror of the cyclone in Myanmar/Burma, the recent tornado through the southeast US and the flooding of the Midwest, it makes us realize that we are not in control. We try to be, however.

By having sophisticated weather tracking systems and keeping our eyes glued to the TV for the slightest movement of the storm, and seeing the radar images in red, yellow or green, it appears that we can at least gauge it. On Fox news beginning at 9 p.m., the general news program and most advertising was suspended for continuous presentation of the storm traveling from west to east. The tornado warnings ended at 10:30 p.m. at which time The Simpsons, the regularly programmed television show, appeared. The radar picture stayed at the bottom of the screen, however.

The recent over-observance of the weather could be caused by a sense of guilt on the part of the television stations and media in general. The people of Myanmar/Burma were helpless to the extent that the media stations may not have had the technology to warn the residents. On top of that, the residents themselves did not have the tools – TV and radio – to hear and see what was coming at them. With the type of potential scare that weathercasters feel, and the excitement it brings, they are glad to be giving point by point descriptions of what’s going on. By broadcasting each second, they can feel that they provided the most warning possible, so they will need to shoulder no blame for uninformed citizens.

While we cleaned out the pantry of a few floor items and the heavier items on the shelves above to make it our safety retreat should we hear the roar of a train signifying a tornado, we still kept the TV and computer going, virtually dismissing the angry storm revealed on the TV. And while there was another storm on the way in a few hours, we went to bed without thinking more about it. The more we see on TV, with no real effect except a bright, beautiful flashing night sky with noisy thunder and rain, sometimes deadens us to the real threat. How many people have not fled from hurricanes, tornado and flood warnings in the US? What will it require, if intense TV doesn’t do it, to make us take heed?

Weather is exciting, fun to watch, and exhilarating to make it through, yet unpredictable until the show is over.

(This should have posted by midnight, Wednesday, May 14, to make up for the missed May 11 posting, but exhaustion hit and it didn’t happen. May 18 posting will hopefully happen by May 20)