Denver weather,...or rather whether

I don't want to take ANYTHING away from my buddy Flip at the FireKathySabine blog (http://http://firekathysabine.blogspot.com/) but I really want to comment on the titillation and excitement that the news stations in Denver go through to cover the weather. O.K., Flip isn't really my buddy; actually I really just like his blog,... and occasionally stalk him. Aside from that, I feel pretty confident that if he ever decided to step out of his cardboard box when I was lurking nearby, we would probably get along and he would welcome my borderline plagiarism.



It's gonna snow! Not sure if you picked up on that, but hey- Mike Nelson started the sleigh ride well before the 5 P.M. news yesterday.



I watched Ed Green dance around making an actual prediction of amounts and/or intensity of the storm, and even at 9 P.M., 9News wasn't really ga ga about it and again said that there would be "the possibility of heavy snow". SCREW ALL OF YOU AMATURES!!! Mike Nelson said he expected up to a foot of snow for the Front Range foothills and Western Denver, and he said it well before the NOAA weather forecast did.



My point in all of this is very simple. (Yes, that's a sentence) Meteorologists are people (usually) who study the science of weather and weather forecasting. They are supposed to get readings from fancy, expensive instruments and measure moisture flow and movements of storm systems to make a SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION of the weather. Most of the talking weather heads in the Denver Metro just mimic what NOAA weather forecasters post. Why pay some pancake makeup smeared tart or chump $150K or more a year to report what anyone can look up on-line in 2 minutes. Not our boy Mike! He went out on a limb and it looks like he's hit the mark.



I'm not a Fanboy of any particular weather person, or television station. I am however, someone who thinks that thousands of Coloradans watch the weather to find out what's supposed to happen within the next 24 to 48 hours and don't want the people giving the information to dance around the issue for fear of being wrong, or for telling us what some don't want to hear. (I swear if I hear them bitch about it being "nasty snowy and cold" again I will break my T.V.) Do your job, evaluate the data, make a prediction and let it fly. If you're wrong, it's no big deal- everyone is from time to time. If you're 9News and can't predict moisture to come from a garden hose, then maybe you should try to hire professional meteorologists to handle the weather and not professional paycheck cashers.