Oh, TWC, the invented drama and stupidity you put on display is why I refuse to watch you. Today, their top guy, Jim Cantore, got hit with a tree branch while stupidly standing out in the open reporting on Hurricane Ian.
I certainly never wish harm on anyone but if you do stupid stuff like this, you get what you deserve. He is lucky it only hit his leg and not his head.
Of course I suppose at least this portrayed reality, unlike previous coverage which could only be called “fake news.”
Last year the Weather Channel unilaterally decided to start naming winter storms, a decision met with ridicule and concern from weather professionals. Now, with a storm TWC calls ‘Janus’, we very graphically can see another reason why the naming of these storms may not be a good idea.
The list the Weather Channel created for winter storms during the 2013 – 2014 season range contains everything from Latin words and Roman governors to mythological figures.
The channel is calling the current storm pounding the Northeast ‘Janus.’ Janus comes from Roman mythology and was considered the god of beginnings and transitions.
Setting aside the fact the naming of winter storms is ridiculous and only serves to confuse people in potentially dangerous situation, the display of the name during broadcasts has brought further ridicule.
Many graphics showing the word ‘Janus’ on TWC were partially obscured by their on air personalities and even their own imagery. The end result has been the appearance of the name without the ‘J’.
See the screenshot top right and below.
Related stories from Examiner.com:
Tuesday morning 20 million subscribers to DirecTV found The Weather Channel missing from their viewing options. The weather network has cited its need to sound the manmade climate change alarm as one of the reasons it needs to be available to the satellite provider’s subscribers.
Some have said that global warming and manmade climate change will bring an increase in “extreme weather” events.
David Kenny, chairman and CEO of The Weather Company, said in a statement today, “This reckless move by DIRECTV will have an impact on our role as part of the national safety and preparedness fabric of our country at a time when the volatility and frequency of weather events seems to be increasing.”
While not overtly mentioning climate change, the implication is there.
Read more about how TWC plans to spread the word about manmade climate change on Examiner.com
Following a contentious dispute with satellite television provider DirecTV, The Weather Channel went dark on the service at midnight Monday. The loss of the network however has allowed other true weather networks an opportunity to provide news and information to the public.
The loss is the first major outage for The Weather Channel that brought 24 / 7 weather to Americans’ homes but has since given up on its core mission in favor of reality based television shows.
It is that shift in programming choices and the lack of true weather coverage that DirecTV cited in its decision to drop the network.
In big news for the commercial weather industry, The Weather Channel recently announced it was buying competing weather website Weather Underground. Reaction to the merger of the nation’s most commercial weather company and the nation’s first commercial weather website was swift and not very supportive.
Here at ThorntonWeather.com we are big fans of the Weather Undergound (despite their co-founder’s global warming alarmism). As for The Weather Channel, we pretty much ignore them.
Find out more about this business deal and why many are unhappy about it.
Getting the latest and most dramatic storm footage has become a popular way for many storm chasers to fuel their hobby and many have turned it into a lucrative business. The actions by some in the chaser community and the risks they take have once again come under scrutiny, this time by the Weather Channel’s Mike Bettes.
Andy Gabrielson, a prolific storm chaser, was involved in a rollover accident last week while chasing a tornado in Oklahoma. Video of the crash was captured by his own dash cam and video cameras of other chasers who assisted him afterwards.
Mike Bettes opined in an ‘Open Mike’ segment last week, “The one thing I always hear from professional chasers is how safety is their number one concern and warning the public is their number one priority. Me? I can B.S. on that one. When you’re getting hit by debris and you’re flipping your car while pursuing a tornado, you’re not very concerned about your safety or anyone else’s.”
As storm chasing has become a more popular hobby, fears are rising that it is only a matter of time before someone gets killed in pursuit of a storm.
Stormchasers across Tornado Alley have been frustrated this spring by what seems to be a lack of tornadoes and severe weather. Indeed, VORTEX2, the largest tornado field study ever, has been running for more than two weeks now and has not seen one twister. Last week, Weather Channel Senior Meteorologist Stu Ostro speculated that global warming was the cause.
In a segment with on-air meteorologist Stephanie Abrams, Ostro explained that the jet stream lingering over Canada and a continual ridge of high pressure were suppressing severe weather. Without the collision of low and high pressure (among other factors), tornadoes and supercell thunderstorms have a hard time forming.
Ostro continued his explanation saying that atmospheric pressure in the Northern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees has increased steadily since 1970. He then overlaid a chart showing this increase with that of a chart that shows global average temperatures having increased over the same period. As he says in his blog entry, “That parallels remarkably well the trend of globally-averaged temperatures, which has also shown a significant rise since the mid 1970s.”
| For the rest of the story story – and a response from Stu Ostro – check out the complete story on the Denver Weather Examiner’s pages. |  |