Once again the weather media in Kansas City demanded YOU STAY HOME…
We for sure would be having ice storms and heavy snow. Roads would be shut down and road conditions horrid.
The truth: NOTHING MUCH HAPPENED…AGAIN!!!!!!
Yet the city was shut down starting Friday with school closings and events being cancelled.
Why?
The weather people on TV and the front page of our KC Star. Doom and Gloom. It’s the reason we stay glued to TV news all day and night. Yet they cost the city MILLIONS of dollars every time they’re wrong, which often they are.
Friday passed with no major street issues. NONE all day, no snow, no ice.
The winners are the grocery stores that were packed.
The losers were the evening events, restaurants, entertainment places and pretty much anything open for business outside of getting food and drink for the snowed-in, iced-in weekend that wasn’t.
AGAIN.
They did this just a few weeks back with little bad weather hitting same result. Do they do it to protect us? Is it for ratings and eyeballs on the tube? Did we need to close all the schools before we saw a snow flake or any ice Friday? NO.
Maybe, like in the past, the powers that be should just wait until something happens, huh?
The public is so afraid of ice or snow on the streets all they have to do is just say it and few people go out.
“I can’t go out, the street will be deadly.” I drove home from the Legends Friday night at 11 PM. We did have some light mist for a few minutes around 930 PM in some spots, it did get a bit slick here and there…but an ICE STORM, SNOW, no way.
Kansas City has had no major snow storms in years. Yes, we get a bit of snow here and there, 1/2 inch, 1 inch, 2 inches tops, but heavy snow? Been years.
Yet today we have 1200 channels to watch on the tube, computers to watch, can be on our cell phones and apps…we have things to do at home.
Hey. they even moved the Chiefs/Steelers play off game to Sunday night, why?
THE ICE STORM.
What ice storm? Its 8am Sunday as I write this and maybe it will happen, but so far, NO.
It’s the first time I know of that a playoff game time had been moved due to bad weather. Wow.
The media pays no price for shutting down a city and being wrong.
They don’t even say, “We’re sorry” or “Lets be a bit more careful with calling this the next time.”
Nope and they do it mostly on weekends. Why?
Because people have plans and are more likely to watch and listen to see if they need to cancel or move them. I love when they show past bad weather videos on the news…why? To scare everyone!
It’s doom and gloom, fear newscasting.
And it works.
Will it stop? Nope.
Honestly I’m glad the KC-Steelers game got moved to the night..much more fun to watch.
Yes, there needs to be a backlash against ALL MEDIA, but we are lemmings.
In the end weekend had no storms, no ice storm, almost nothing…unreal…game moved for no real reason…
Every bad weather predicton brings out the haters like you. I dont see you putting your weather predictions out here. Isn’t so easy is it huh?
Weather has always been THE point of local news. At least that’s how I see it. From eyes that saw WHB and KMBC share a channel and WDAF hosting the DuMont Network.
Everybody was waiting for the weather. They knew the real news would be in the Kansas City Times in the morning. Only “news” was from the KC Star which was just touching up on the day.
And the most popular segment, the weather, was at the near-end of the broadcast. To keep eyes on the program.
One of my big-time media friends worked in the broadcast news business for 50+ yrs told how the CBS Evening News (1950s) could fill 15-minutes of airtime. The explosion of local news to an hour boggled the mind of those in the news business.
But they had been replaced by bean counters. Whereas the news/weather/sports were loss leaders for local tv the bean counters changed it into a profit center. The FCC eliminating any and all rules for broadcasting in the public interest was the death of NEWS and the beginning of the news BUSINESS.
A couple of big blizzards hit the Philadelphia area when I lived there. There was four-feet of snow on the beach at Atlantic City. Closed for a week due to roads being drifted over deep.
Then in the 1990s an apocalypse of a snow storm was projected to hit the area. On Wed they cancelled schools for Friday.
Friday dawned clear, bright and 60-degrees. Best Snow Day Ever said my kids.
Does tv news and weather have an unhealthy effect on the population?
Just look at the top two candidates for President of the United States for your answer.
I remember Sis and me with a yardstick in the front yard measuring if there was 12-inches of snow. That is how much it took to cancel school in the 50s/early 60s.
I hear you, CG. It happens all the time. But, I’ll play devil’s advocate. MoDOT, the Highway Patrol, Missouri’s governor and to a lesser extent the National Weather Service don’t have an obligation to ANY of the area’s businesses. Their obligation is to the public and the public’s safety.
Obviously, there were a lot of people that decided they didn’t want to screw around with it and decided to stay home. Even if they were skeptical about all the predictions of doom and gloom, they took the “better safe than sorry” approach to the weekend. Given the POTENTIAL of some really nasty conditions, that was a sane and rational decision.
I assessed the conditions in my local area and decided to get out and about. But, that was MY decision to do so. If others decided to stay put, that was THEIR decision. Blaming the weather folks just seems silly. It’s not like it was 80 degrees and sunny out there.
Good points, however I don’t believe its a public safety issue, when it became clear on Friday that things would likely be decent to fine….as it turned out…again. Our winter weather forecasts are usually WRONG. To close schools and panic so early was a bit much….they closed this city down, third time this winter and no storm yet.
Using words like ‘maybe’ or be careful…instead of STAY HOME, might be better.
I still find myself scratching my head that Gov. Greiten’s declared a State of Emergency on Thursday, likely before more than a handful of rain drops had fallen within the State. As soon as I heard the talking heads walking the forecasts back on Thursday afternoon, I knew there was bound to be nothing. I live South of the metro, where it was supposed to be the worst; nothing that wasn’t gone by 11AM.
Orphan and Jim BWH make some good points. And a good part of the over-hype begins and ends with “business” and “potential.”
I swear I think local mets look at THE WORST possible scenario and beat that ‘doom and gloom’ into our heads… because if they DON’T, and it DOES materialize, BOOM-BOOM out go the lights. The news director and GM start getting calls from HQ wondering why the hell the ratings have dropped, blah, blah…
And, no, they won’t apologize. why? because they’re NEVER wrong. If they call for an inch of ice and we get only rain, the front didn’t move through as expected!
I get that forecasting the weather is an inexact science…. Lezak says ‘you’re trying to predict the future…’ and he’s right. and if all three models they use agree, I can’t blame them for going with it.
but folks, like cg added just a bit ago, DIAL IT BACK. And, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE… QUIT telling us to “BUNDLE UP”!!!!! we are NOT morons!!! we KNOW if it’s 15 degrees out that IT IS VERY COLD and to wear warm clothes, dress in layers. freakin’ idiots…. YOU’RE NOT MY GD MOTHER AND I”M NOT 8 YEARS OLD!!
I enjoy being reminded to “grab my heavy coat.” I cannot tell you how many times I’ve looked at the big temp dial on my back porch and walked outside not knowing whether I needed my heavy coat as opposed to my lightweight coat or my jacket. Whew, I say thank you talk radio and local news.
you gotta be joking, right? if not, maybe you should just stay inside, save yourself the grief.
Joking? Are you kidding. I like it when they tell me that I need the coat in the morning, but I can take the coat off in the afternoon because it will warm up. One time I heard them say that I needed my coat, so I took my coat and immediately left before hearing that I could take it off in the afternoon. Well, I didn’t take it off because I didn’t know I could and I suffered a heat stroke. Moral of the story. LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE WEATHER REPORT.
God, you don’t know how good you got it up there in KC as far as media goes. I’m in the Tampa area and all the local affiliates shove 2-3 hours EACH of made up news each and every day. Plus, you know the kind of people that live down here as well, not just the old folks but the worst trailer trash ever invented cept’ for maybe Mississippi, backwoods Arkeysauce, and coal minors in W. Vergeneeiayyy.
You ain’t the dude that fuc*ed his pit bull iz ya.
This idea that all news is fake is right out of The Donald’s playbook. It’s simply not true of the mainstream media like the New York Times. It’s the far right and left websites that masquerade themselves as news sites that are fake.
In so far as the weather is concerned, a difference of one/two degrees was the difference between KC getting a massive ice storm or mostly rain. Even the most experienced meteorologist can’t get the temperature exactly right and when the temperature is plus or minus right at the freezing point, it’s best to plan for the worst.
Your first paragraph offered truth, so it is FAKE.
Your second paragraph offered science, so it is FAKE.
KC STAR agreed with me in an article they wrote yesterday.