Summer in the South

by - June 09, 2011

 It's officially summertime in the south. Well, not officially as we haven't yet passed the summer solstice. That's not until June 21st, but it sure as heck feels like summer down here! I'm talking 100+ temps during the day, barely dropping into the 70s overnight and no rain in sight.

So you can probably imagine that people are getting testy. Our meteorologists have started getting hate mail... as if they actually can control the weather, right? But it's not just limited to 'why aren't you bringing us rain?'
 
One email berated them for not giving people hope, acting as though they should up the rain chances just to end up disappointing people in the end. Another was aghast that our nightside meteorologist would [rightfully] say that our only hope of getting out of this drought would be for something tropical - 'how dare you wish death and destruction along the gulf coast!'
 
Summer storms don't really qualify as rain, but whenever those little spotty, pop-up thunderstorms roll through the newsroom phone goes nuts.

Last Friday we had people calling in to report what they thought were tornadoes and some calling in just to tell us it rained for 15 minutes at their house.

My favorite was the guy who'd been fishing and swore to me that he'd been sucked up into a tornado.

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1 comments

  1. It all sounds very familiar to me, Ashton. Kill the messenger. Maybe the viewers would back off if your meteorologists did what one of our weather guys used to do - wear moose antlers during the weather segment! (LOL) Those were the days when gimmicks abounded and it didn't take much to amuse people. It's actually cooler in Florida than it is up there in 'Bama. We're surrounded by water, have a sea breeze and a land breeze, and we're slowly getting more cloud cover which holds down the temps. We're still bone dry, though, and it's becoming a real problem. The air has the foul scent of distant muck fires! Take care, dear friend!

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