An Open Letter to The Weather Channel and storm-chasing meteorologists in general.
To All This Concerns,
Recently I have noticed a trend towards making the presentation of weather and weather-related stories exciting and "extreme". This is hardly a surprise in a day and age where attention spans are shorter than the half-life of the average campaign promise, and only loud, bright and flashing can even attract anyone's attention anymore. Still, I would wish for a certain degree of decorum and consideration.
Earlier this evening I viewed part of the "Vortex II" storm-chasing show on The Weather Channel. The images were fascinating, the presentation was quite good... and the meteorologists and storm chasers appeared to be completely detached from reality.
We understand that a meteorologist would be excited about his/her work; we would hope so. But America has just experienced several absolutely hellish tornado impacts with horrific death tolls, and here we have a show where it's all glee and hope that the storm conditions will come to form a tornado.
We also understand that it's the purpose of the team to catch and observe tornadoes for much-needed scientific research that may someday save lives; we welcome this and are glad for it. But would it be too much ask for a reasonable degree of solemnity from these researchers as they hope for something that could quite easily end up killing people or at least destroying everything they have and turning their lives inside-out?
Please, Weather Channel and meteorologists in general, show some respect. Remember that this thing you're getting so excited about could easily be tantamount to a bombing run on a city or town near you. Remember the people. Thank you.
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