I have to hand it to the marketers at the Weather Channel. While posing as our guardians and protectors, they are raking in trainloads of cash, suggesting that Armageddon is just a few hours away. Maybe so.
The alarm senders and fearful people online love being warned about things, so the weather channel is music for them.
Hurricanes are always bad news for people living on the coasts (when I was a kid, a hurricane leveled our house in Rhode Island as we fled the storm), and it is good to have warnings of high winds and flooding.
The National Weather Service used to do that for free, and they were (and are) quite good at it. They offer the weather without the drama. Since they don’t frighten people, they are not nearly as popular as the weather channel.
I highly recommend the National Weather Service App. They will inform you without scaring the pants off of you.
In fact, they provide the weather channel the data they use to terrify millions of people into watching continuously, thus making advertisers very happy but people nervous wrecks.
Bad weather is perfect for them and profitable.
I have a friend who is a producer at the Weather Channel, and he says ever since they started naming all of their storms, their revenues have shot through the roof. They are owned by IBM now.
In our country, everything is either politicized or profitized; nothing is beyond corporate marketing. I think the weather is much too serious for greedy corporate marketers., especially in the case of climate change.
A hurricane is supposed to come right over us, and the Weather Channel suggests we may be out of power for days, maybe even weeks!
Be afraid and watch them every minute to guard your life and your loved ones. Surges, high winds, flooding, tornadoes, cones and projections!
Maria and I are choosing a middle ground.
\We are aware and have taken precautions; we’ll skip panicking and preparing for Armageddon. Once you know how much money the weather channel makes, it’s tough to be grateful for their warnings.
Still, many millions of people are suffering from the weather right now, which deserves respect and attention. At the moment, the sun is out, and the farm looks beautiful. Tomorrow is supposed to be very different.
We stocked water, made sure our flashlights had fresh batteries, touch-based with a very sick friend. If their power goes out, I will be spending time there every day helping out.
I don’t have a general idea of what’s happening; I’ll make the outdoors my own weather channel. I known when it’s raining, and the wind is blowing, the weather channel has done its lucrative job, and I can take it from here.
There’s enough bad news raining in on us; I’m selective about what I listen to and watch.
If the Apocalypse comes, I might be offline for a while, hours, days, or weeks depending on whether you are an optimist or pessimist and what you listen to and watch.
If so, you can be assured, I will return, even if it means renting a motel room up north. I can blog from anywhere, but I might be silent for a while.
My gut says it will be messy and blowy up here, but not catastrophic. We’re covering the wood with tarps, picking up things that are blowable, and moving them into the barn.
My Willa Cather’s wife loves this stuff; she is a pioneer wife at heart, hardship makes her feel necessary and useful. She loves living by candlelight. She is a great person to ride out a hurricane with. She loves being close to nature in any form.
Sheep and donkeys are desert and mountain animals; they can take care of themselves, the barn cats will vanish into the deepest recesses of our barn and surface when everything is over.
I have books to read and charged reading lights to read them by.
I’ll take my insulin pens over to a neighbor who has a generator (I think it’s time for us to get one.)
And we are heading to the farmer’s market and planning to bring some food to my friend and to eat. When I get anxious about the weather, I think about him.
So take care of yourself, wherever you are. That seems to apply to everyone in America. Later.
Friend from north shore of Long Island said this morning heavy rain but light wind. She is worried about her tomatoes but not her house. Will download the weather app you suggested.
I’m curious. Since you have solar power, are you not independent of the electric grid? Or are you still vulnerable to losing power during a storm? I’m curious partly because I am seriously considering going solar.
Solar energy comes from the power grid; it is powered by it. No electricity, no power of any kind.
Barbara, the only way to be off the grid with solar is to purchase a battery backup system. When you have solar, as I do, you are still hooked up to the grid. The power you produce is used by you, and any excess is sold for a very small profit. Your local energy company sets the rate. In my case, here in Connecticut, ISO New England sets my rate. When the power goes out the meter shuts off the system to prevent it from generating electricity and shocking the line workers doing repairs. It’s all done automatically. The system resets when the grid is repaired, or the next morning when it does a refresh.
Do plenty of research before buying or leasing a system. Best wishes
Greatly inspiring, Jon. Your attitudes about how you both will handle the storm and it’s possibilities are calming and reassuring to your animals and your house and barn. I will be thinking about you and Maria if it hits your area and I’ll know that you all are safe and snuggly taking care of each other. ❤️❤️❤️ Stay in touch with your readers!!
The wind is howling here in Central Connecticut as the rains lash the ground. Truly not a good day to be out and about. Last night the bugs were singing like crazy. We could hear it in the house. A friend texted me this last night. “Every summer bug is singing the song of its people tonight.” I thought it was poetic.
Hi Holly,
We are in northeastern Connecticut, and heard the same with our bugs the night before the storm. My husband took the dog out, and came back in to get me so I could hear them sing! I love that quote!
Lots of wind and rain here, too, but the sun is shining, once again, this morning. We may get a few tropical downpours as Storm Henri circles around on his way out of here, but we’ll see!
Whenever people talk about the naming of hurricanes, I remember when we lived in Alexandria, VA n the 1950’s. the National Weather Service was just started naming hurricanes and was a mere local phone call away. So, my 4th grade teacher thought it would be educational if her students were assigned the task of finding out the names of the hurricanes for that year. Being the overachiever that I was and despite the caution from my mother that it might not be a good idea, I took the big step of calling the big National Weather Service. The voice at the other end of the line was a weary and resigned voice when I asked him to give me the names of the hurricanes. He did, but he wasn’t happy to be slowly talking to a 4th grader who couldn’t write very fast. When we concluded, he said he would appreciate it I would ask my teacher to stop giving this assignment. I think the teacher, being rather new to teaching, had not thought what would happen if all 25 students called the NWS and had them plow through all 26 names. Now, every time I hear the weather people mention the name of a hurricane, I have a little chuckle at those poor patient weathermen who had to drag through all 26 names. This assignment was certainly very educational in lots of ways!
a second comment: I am perennially angry at the Weather Channel because years back you had to watch an ad in order to watch a video and they were only showing ads for RoundUp weed killer, and I would talk back and say that is a dangerous product and now years later it is being taken off the market because it is a carcinogen.
Jon…
When you wrote about your background in broadcasting, your revelation that TV gained viewership by keeping the public in a state of fear and concern was, to me, a major moment.
While some news channel dramatizations to boost ratings seem overdone, weather threats were different. Although science and forecasting have really improved, weather uncertainty does exist.
I was raised in Florida in the 1950s. Then with no weather satellites, initial hurricane reports came mostly from nearby shipping. A nascent storm could be fully-formed when finally spotted.
During that time, a small but fast-moving hurricane hit us with little warning. Trees and debris were down all over. We lost electricity and water for 3 – 5 days. As a kid, I had slept through the whole thing. But today, with populations concentrated along the coasts, loss and inconvenience are likely to be worse.
In wartime, this type of situation could be more dangerous. During late December 1944 in the Philippine Sea, Admiral William F. Halsey received uncertain weather information that, combined with misjudgments, caused him to led his Task Force 38 into the center of a typhoon. The major storm sank (3) destroyers, damaged (9) other warships, and left (790) sailors dead or missing, while sweeping dozens of aircraft overboard from their aircraft carriers.
I have my issues with The Weather Channel. But because of the potential for injury and destruction, I’m willing to give reporting on hurricanes an extra margin of freedom. However, keep the live reports that come from inside the storm.
Btw, the National Hurricane Center still provides updated storm progress at https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ . They always get my first nod.