old man winter is bitter

with a winter storm supposedly on its way here, I have no doubt that the supermarkets are chock-full of people buying bread and canned food in a battle for survival. but hey, it could be much worse. the residents of raleigh, nc apparently trusted their meteorologists so much that when a predicted ‘light dusting’ turned into ONE FULL INCH of snow (gasp!), all hell broke loose.

since this catastrophic event took place, there’s been a lot of finger-pointing and whining. I’d say most of the blame rests on the shoulders of the city management. why? well, meteorologists can only do so much. I took a few meteorology classes when I was at penn state – supposedly one of the better meteorology schools – and other than a shitload of isoplething, there was one thing that stood out: weather forecasts – even with modern computer simulations – simply can’t be 100% accurate. knowing this, you’d think that the city would’ve been better prepared, since this has happened before.

“A forecast that had given a better indication of the likely problem would have been very helpful,” Mayor Charles Meeker said.

Residents particularly those who have lived in other parts of the country couldn’t believe the city was brought to its knees by just an inch of snow.

“I just don’t think they’re equipped to handle it,” said Lori Jamieson, who’s from Pennsylvania.

that’s not to say the weathermen are innocent in all of this. but at least some of them owned up to it. and as anyone who’s seen curb your enthusiasm knows, sometimes they do it just to get a better tee-time.