Week In Review

Felt the need to go back and look at the weather event we experienced early in the week as a cold core upper low passed through.

The ULL brought the need to mention the chance of a few snowflakes here, and as usual, it brought out the trolls, haters, and know it alls in full force.

The forecast laid out here was not bad. The beautiful thing about having all of our discussions in writing on the blog is that you can go back and read every word written before and during the event. Our idea was for a bullseye of 1-4 inches of snow over parts of West Tennessee, Northeast Mississippi, and the northwest corner of Alabama on grassy areas. For Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Anniston, and Gadsden we mentioned nothing more than a dusting, or a “few flakes”. And no travel problems; just wet roads. Even in the heavier snow areas travel issues were not expected due to the warm ground and infrastructure.

So, after a good forecast through a difficult situation, haters were all over us, calling us morons for forecasting “two inches of snow” that never happened. Most of these IP addresses were from Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Anniston, and Gadsden.

I spent some time yesterday trying to determine where they got a forecast of two inches of snow. Sure wasn’t here.

Best I can tell, it was related to a “winter weather advisory” issued by the Birmingham NWS office Monday morning. This populated to the public via many methods, including some of the moronic smart phone apps some people use exclusively.

Some of my closest friends work at our fine NWS office here, but we are so busy these days that I rarely have time to review their products. From reading their statement, I sure don’t think they were forecasting two inches of snow for the I-20 corridor either. But, maybe some saw the advisory for their county and expected snow on the ground. I honestly don’t know.

One thing is for sure, we have had enough of the trolls. We don’t have time to deal with their profanity laced comments; we have gone through a total change in our comment system which removes the secrecy these people depend on; the haters don’t have the guts to put their real name on their posts.

We fully expected some of them to use fake Facebook accounts with the new system, and that did happen. But in the new world Facebook is working with us to root them out. I suggest the young people who tried this to stop before real trouble comes their way. We know more about them than they might imagine.

Let me stress I have no problems with criticism of our products. But, if you don’t get your forecasts here, don’t drop by the blog to spew anger and rage. We have nothing to do with the little icons you see on your smart phone apps or the forecasts that come with them, unless you are reading this blog.

We get it wrong, then we deserve to have our chops busted.

And, for the trolls, please remember this is the season to be thankful. Life is too short to spend time and energy writing comments of rage on blogs. Chronically negative people won’t have much of a chance to be successful in the work place or in a family.

I do want to wish the trolls a Merry Christmas. I hope 2012 is better for you.

Tags: Haters

Category: Hodgepodge