Weather reporting back in the day

Sitting down the Jersey Shore looking at the fog roll in made me think back to the earlier days of TV and weather reports.

What made me nostalgic for those days was the inconsistent and, ultimately, wrong, weather reports touted on all the TV networks over the July 4th holiday weekend

Oh, how I hate the phrase “back in the day” but I now have some inkling as to what it means.

Back in the day of TV, there was no doppler radar, there was no satellite imagery, and the weather was not broken up into 3 minute tidbits spread throughout the half-hour and hour long newscasts we suffer through today.

Back in the day, we had weathermen and weatherladies. We didn’t have professional meteorologists (or optometrists masquerading as meteorologists.)

No, instead of meteorologists, we had Joe Bolton, Jan Crockett, Gloria Okun, and the king of them all, Tex Antoine and his prognosticator puppet-head Uncle Wethbee.

And instead of news hosts turning to their professional weatherperson time and time again during the broadcast, we had a succinct 3 minutes of weather in which we’d learn the forecast—in other words, do you bring the umbrella to work tomorrow or leave it home? And that seems to have suit the viewing public just fine.

I suppose we all like the sound of authority around us, after all, we like to rely on others. And there's no better person than the person who speaks with confidence. And that applies to our meteorologists, too. Unfortunately for us, that authority has overlooked one inescapable fact—being a weatherman is the only job you can keep even when you are consistently wrong.

In fact, our meteorologists cost us millions each year as we rely on their forecasts of highs and lows, storms and hurricanes, rain and snow, and plan accordingly. A forecast for bad weather keeps people away from resort destinations, such as the Jersey Shore, and weather forecasts promising sunshine and clear days that turn out to be wrong cause folks to waste their money on those trips. There’s nothing worse than a damp motel room, soggy boardwalk or over-crowded game room.

And there's nothing worse than hearing about weather in Manitoba that's coming our way in a week.

So how about a return to those thrilling days of yesteryear when weather was 3 minute report? No radar, no US Weather Bureau, nothing fancy. Just tell me, is it going to rain or be sunny, and let me take it from there.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow