Growing up in Michigan, snow was a part of life for about 5 months a year. But living now here in southeastern Pennsylvania for almost five years, I still have a hard time believing how freaked everyone gets around here with snow. Here is a perfect cartoon to describe what it is like around here.
This one comes courtesy of Randy Bish.
It is amazing how people truly do this. Like they are going to be snowed in for a week. Most times here we end up getting 4 to 5 inches over night and in the morning, and by the time afternoon commute home comes around, the roads are clear and sometimes even dry. Yet everyone runs around like a chicken with their head cut-off the two days before. And the biggest reason is because all the stations’ news teams are talking about it like it’s the end of the world.
I hate sensationalism in news, but it’s even more ridiculous in the weather report.
December 9th, 2005 at 9:09 am
I think it was all brought home to me by my co-worker. Basically, he put it “There is no ad money in snow, but in hyping it…”
I still think running to the grocery store for these kinds of storms is just plain silly. We are never going to be in a situation where we cannot go out for more than 24 hours. If you do not have enough food at home for that time frame, you have much bigger concerns than snow.
One of the things about the area though that causes so much “hype” is the fact that they (and I mean the local government here) stink at dealing with snow. They plow after it stops, and will almost never put down a roadbase before hand. That is just not smart.
December 9th, 2005 at 9:16 am
They do stink at dealing with it. I remember so many times during storms in the Detroit area, being woken up once or twice during the night by the rumbling of the snow plows going down our street.
December 9th, 2005 at 9:22 am
Even in Delaware the same would happen. It is a PA thing. I remember being in NY State with Catherine and the trucks were out salting & sanding and there was not one flake sticking yet. She was asking what they were doing. I gave her quite a look because she responded with “What?!”. I actually had to explain the “pre-emptive” strike idea.
December 9th, 2005 at 10:31 am
The newest thing in Michigan is each channel has their own WINTER STORM TEAM!!!! Once there is even a chance of 2 inches or more you can’t go 2 minutes watching the news with them going to the STORM TEAM on location. As for the locations it is always the same either 1. On an overpass 2. At some pile of salt in some county yard or 3. Interviewing some kind of moron to talk about the snow, either someone from MDOT or some random jacka$$ at a gas station.
So its getting pretty bad here too.
December 10th, 2005 at 10:49 am
What I want to do is while standing in the line at the check out at the grocery store is talk about how the weather people are “uping” the accumlations. “No I heard it’s now 15 inches”, “No I heard they said 20 inches now!”
And then watch for their reactions as they run to go get more milk.
