Springtime! It’s that time of year when the daffodils bloom, the buds pop out on the trees, folks wander through the parks enjoying the outdoors, and.. anything else.. (?) Oh, yeah.. the folks on the Weather Channel get really excited. Practically giddy.
You can’t blame them, really. They’ve spent months talking about snow and cold, cold and snow, and not much that’s very inspiring. Or even newsworthy. That changes along about this time of year. I sat down this morning to write this missive, and almost reflexively turned on the Weather Channel. Within a half hour or so, I’ve seen reports on Cyclone Winston, the strongest storm ever in the Southern Hemisphere; a tornado outbreak across the South that (once again) reminded us that mobile home parks in tornado country are not wise; Winter Storm Petros, which is bringing blizzard conditions to the Upper Midwest; A weather analysis that was presented by Jennifer Lopez; and that the forecast for my area of Kansas today will be cool and sunny.
There are probably three primary things to understand about the Weather Channel:
- These are good-hearted people who wish the best for you. Their unfortunate habit of becoming excited when the weather turns bad is one of those unfortunate features of the job that should not be held against them. They seriously can’t help it.
- If you listen to the in-depth part of their weather analysis, you’ll pretty much receive the equivalent of a master’s degree in understanding weather. Who really understood downward convection and hook echoes before the Weather Channel came along? Not me, for sure.
- And most importantly: PRETTY MUCH EVERY WORD THAT COMES OUT OF THEIR MOUTHS CAN SAVE LIVES AND MAKE THE EXECUTION OF YOUR ROLE AS AN EMERGENCY MANAGER MORE EFFECTIVE.
So: three cheers for the Weather Channel. They haven’t directly saved my life yet, but as I live in Tornado Alley, I fully expect that could happen at any time. They may or may not have saved the lives of anyone in your particular jurisdiction yet: but you should consider that their inputs will make that circumstance much more likely, and utilize them to the best benefit of your efforts to protect and serve the public.
We are an information society. We suffer from massive overloads of information. The critical skill is to separate the good information from the bad, and the good information providers from the charlatans. The folks at the Weather Channel are the good guys. Use them well.
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