Saturday, December 20, 1997

Weather is always a good topic for TV

By Dale McFeatters

Local TV stations have discovered the weather. It is always there, it is cheap to cover, it lends itself to hysteria, and when it is bad the visuals are good.

The only problem with the weather is that you can't always count on it.

A typical morning broadcast on my local channels:

"Moscow has record cold, 19 below. Eleven froze to death last night." Footage of muffled, fur-hatted Muscovites struggling through blowing snow. "Is that cold headed our way? We'll be right back."

...

"Moscow is in the deep freeze. Will we be too? Let's ask Channel Nine forecaster P.J. Isobar. "P.J., are we going to experience some of that Russian winter."

"No, Tiffany. Lucky for us, we never see any of that weather. Our weather watchers are checking in from all over. 51 degrees downtown. Rockville reports 50 degrees. But out toward the mountains, it's 48, 46 with the wind chill.

"Checking our Channel Nine Doppler radar map, we see no local precip. And, going to our national satellite weather map, we see no precip of any kind, either, except for his little disturbance near Galveston, Texas, that we'll be keeping an eye on for you.

"But you know what they say about the weather. It changes. Back to you, Tiffany."

"What kind of winter do we have in store. Let's check with a forecaster who has a different approach."

Switch to standup of a bearded old coot in front of a log cabin. He is wearing what appears to be an elaborate orange and brown patterned sweater that turns out, as the camera moves in, to be hundreds of woolly bear caterpillars.

"With us is Hiram Crepple who uses traditional folk techniques to predict the weather. How do you see this winter, Mr. Crepple?"

"When the leaves are tender on the cabbage, the winter will be sort of average."

"I've heard that a narrow stripe on a woolly bear means a fierce winter. What are your caterpillars telling you?"

"Nothing. I just like to wear bugs."

...

"P.J. Isobar back with you. Looks like highs around 50, lows around 30 the rest of the week. A few scattered clouds. But it wasn't always thus. Here with a report from the Channel Nine Weather Patio is Otis Mungeon. Otis?"

A lightly perspiring reporter is standing outdoors on what appears to be a standard suburban patio. He is wearing galoshes, a hat with ear flaps, a down jacket, mittens and holding an umbrella.

"Remember what happened on this date eight years ago? I would have had to wear this outfit to stand on this very spot. We had four inches of snow. Four inches! But the kids enjoyed it."

Footage of ineptly made snowman on snowy lawn with grassy patches, followed by footage of traffic at a standstill in the falling snow. "Is this in our forecast? El Nino says maybe it is. Back after this."

...

"El Nino, that massive weather maker and trouble maker in the Pacific. What are its plans for us?"

Footage of storm-lashed coasts, wind-seared deserts, torrential rains flooding city streets, a highway shut down by a blizzard.

"Let's go to snow removal chief Ron Halite at Snow Central. Ron, are you prepared for El Nino."

Halite, a burly man in coveralls, is standing in front of a row of snow plows."

"Well, we try to track the anchovy movements off the coast of of

"Well, we try to track the anchovy movements off the coast of Ecuador pretty closely, and of course we keep an eye out for reports of out-of-season fish in the Pacific Northwest, but mostly we call the National Weather Service.

"If they say we're in for a good snow, we put the crews on standby. They'd be on standby now except, well, it's 50 degrees so I have them out patching potholes."

...

Footage of dirty air, smokestacks, closeups of auto exhaust pipes. Tiffany does voice-over:

"Global warming. Will the schools close? We'll be back at the top of the hour."

Scripps Howard News Service