Mostly sunny, falling skies

I had to laugh the other day. It had been a spectacular day; warm spring temperatures, not a cloud in the sky. Then I watched a weatherguy talk about the fact that there hadn't been any clouds all day. Then he proceeded to show an hour by hour satellite photo loop, which, of course, showed absolutely nothing for thirty seconds.

But being obsessive about weather is nothing new, thanks to consultants. Years ago they did surveys which showed most people cared about the weather, and took it to the extreme. Now instead of one forecast each half hour, we get three. (The last one being a crutch for producers who can't time a show, even with computers.) Yes, people are interested in the weather, but that doesn't mean they need to see the same thing three times in thirty minutes.

But that's not the problem. The problem is that every market seems to have one or more "sky is falling" weathercasters who can take a thunderstorm watch and turn it into Armageddon or Noah's flood.

Run for your lives.

Yes, severe weather is important. (I used to do weather and even went thru Mississippi State's program.) But there's a fine line between informing the public and being an alarmist. For most weathercasters, it's time to tone it down a notch. You know who you are.

Then there are the stations that do constant squeezebacks if there's one dark cloud in the market, making regular programming unwatchable. Just run the crawl. We can read.

Years ago when we reporters needed extra time for stories, we'd always ask the producer if we could "take it out of weather." If it was a day without anything severe, no problem.

Perish the thought today.

Here's a tip for producers. When there's nothing going on weather wise, shorten the weather segment and use that time for news.

And for you weather people who enjoy playing chicken little, just remember that crying wolf too often can make people ignore you when the weather really is severe.